Here’s mine.
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I’m going to save Nadia pollen so I could pollinate most of Rainier Cherry flowers. My goal is to obtain a cherry-like fruit, but with the size of a plum.
I’m also going to hybridize my own 50/50 plum x cherry hybrids.
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Certainly worth trying, but and a big one, you have to get lucky too. Chances are you won’t get a take. Some cherries won’t pollinate others, they have charts on which pollenizer to get.It’s too bad we are working with an Aussie cherry, as that one is not on any of our charts. Zaiger did it thousands times and got lucky.
All the same, I’m trying, have tried, and will continue to do so. So carry on and good luck!
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For the meantime, I’ve been hand pollinating my Nadia with Emerald Drop Pluot pollen. Tomorrow I will try to experiment with Candy Heart Pluerry and Geo Pride Pluot pollen.
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Those crosses should work! At least have a better chance. I will do more, but right now it’s more about setting the trees up for food. Grafting the varieties I want, filling in the holes in ripening times. Once I get that down, I’m going to do a lot more breeding. I’m there with brambles, so I’ll be doing more crossing with them for now. They provide a different set of challenges too, so you’re always learning.
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I’m a little excited as I get to taste my first bramble cross this season. Right around July 1st. I didn’t do any this winter, i had to put a sub floor in two bedrooms at my cottage, in the fall. Normally I would be doing the crosses at that time, oh well. I have new floors at least! I have more rooms to do this year. The torture never stops. I redid my strawberry bed, they are ripe in June, and I need to get all the plants in. About 40 plants. I still need to fill the beds with soil. I’m building two more beds too, one for a blueberry, the other for vegetables. Lot’s to do as always! I would like to play around with breeding blueberries too. I’m going to make a cross this season. I want the trait of firmness from Sweetcrisp, but the adaptability of Northerns. I’m thinking too the trait of superior taste Cara’s Choice has. The color, and extreme hardiness (zone 3) of Pink Popcorn. So two crosses eventually. Which to do first? And whom shall be the pollen parent, and whom the seed? Both ways is best to see which offspring retain the traits you want. I will have to grow them out too. . These are lifetime projects! (That probably will never be completed). I can’t grow enough out here, that’s for sure! I think I’ll try first Pink Popcorn and Sweetcrisp, and try to get a pink berry with the firmness of a grape. Even if I go no further, it would be a cool fruit! Of course I could get a plant that is not firm, but soft, is not pink but blue, and has no hardiness to speak of. A roll of the dice!
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How about Chandler and Sweetcrisp,for very large,cold hardy Blueberries,with crispness? Brady
That would be another excellent cross, for other reasons too. Chandler tends not to be vigorous, and Sweetcrisp is very much so. Sweetcrisp tends to produce a lot of thin canes. Chandler on the other hand has thick woody canes. Of course for best results you would need to grow out as many as possible and try to find the plant with those traits. This is the almost impossible task for backyard growers.
Here she is again! I’ve pollinating her with Emerald Drop Pluot and Candy Heart Pluerry Pollen. I also pollinated and then tagged a couple of flowers with F1 MoorPark Apricot pollen. I will try to germinate those future seeds, and hopefully something interesting shows up from those seedlings.
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How’s your Nadia crop looking?
I’ve got a decent set on a small Nadia. It’s light enough it probably won’t need thinning. Candy Heart has a medium set. It will require some thinning. This is really what I like for set. Things like Flavor Grenade, Geo Pride, and Honey Punch need 90% fruit removal, pretty tedious work.
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My Nadia was damaged earlier this year,when wet snowfall built up on bird netting that the tree was under,breaking some branches.It took about a third away,but there should be enough for a fair crop to happen. Brady
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It looks like pollination was a success. I used Emerald Gem pluot, Geo Pride pluot, and Candy Heart Pluerry as pollinators.
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How can you tell pollination was successful?
A few flowers fall whenever I touch them, and the rest, the Fruitlets are starting to swell.
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Great to hear. I have in the past had blossoms do similar. When the fruitlet begins to swell, after anywhere from 1 week to 1 month, the stem yellows then dies. This has been especially true with minnie royal and royal lee but it has happened with sweet treat pluerry. Do you think this is a pollination problem or something else?
Thanks.
Most likely a pollination problem.
My Nadia is getting frozen out right now. Maybe a few blossoms will make it. 
We just had enough warmth to make all the buds swell, so I hope my Nadia makes it with the 10, 18 low deg weather. I was thinking this was going to be my real first year for crops. Most of my trees are in their 6th leaf. They all have lots of flower buds. My Nadia looks like it might have a dozen in the second leaf. I’m finding that growing fruit gives me lots of mood swings! Still waiting for the day when I can share my bounty.
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Nadia is looking like a weird tree in my area (or maybe just a weird tree of mine since other SoCal forum members don’t seem to have this issue). With almost every other stone fruit tree in full bloom, Nadia just yesterday started showing some some color in the buds and pushed out a leaf (I had been thinking that maybe it died during the winter!). I’ve heard St. Julian rootstock is not good for our area and maybe that is an issue. I’d graft it to something else, but basically everything else is up and going green; many have already dropped their pedals. I’ll save some other pollen to hand pollinate when I finally get some flowers. We shall see.
Nadia yesterday with Flavor Delight in the background.
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