It SHOULD be a good year for cherries here. No curcs, arid atmosphere. If only the netting worked more effectively.
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Birds ate my 2017 batch of Whitegold last week. I didn’t get a single berry. Sad face.
Consolation prize: My two dozen peaches and two dozen apples all still look pretty good.
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Maria,
Nice pics. You trees have a nice shape, If you like Vandalay, you will like Black Gold. To me, they taste similar. I usually let them turn dark red before I pick. Unfortunately, rain often arrives when cherries are ripe. Vandalay cracked so badly every year, I removed the tree.
If you want Black Gold scion, let me know.
Squirrels will get them. 
I haven’t even covered my Lapins…some are red, but not nearly ripe yet.
No, this is what I think is cherry fruit fly, but I might be wrong too. This is the first year when I noticed it. But I had very few cherries in previous years before I grafted new varieties, they helped with pollination.
Thank you Mamuang, I would like to try it. I can give Utah giant scion in exchange. It tasted like a very good Bing cherry. I am afraid that it will probably crack in the wet year but there is always a hope that one year you’ll have the perfect cherries.
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Sure, we can swap. Thank you. Let’s talk in the winter.
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While I like White Gold and it gives me few problems, I kind of feel I was duped by the name. Is there an actual white cherry without the bird-attracting blush?
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OK here are some pictures…
Black Gold:
A few White Gold still left:
Monty will be ready soon:
Regina are starting to ripen:
Few Sandra Rose left, here is one on tree plus a few I picked:
And now for the Bad News on Sandra Rose:
Lastly here are the pickings … lots of Black Gold. Make sure to wait til they are black to pick, they are much better that way. I may try thinning next year as well:
If you look in the background you can see the red/silver scare tape I have up. Thats all I had to do this year and no bird problems at all. I got it up right before any cherries colored. I am so far also not getting any birds on the blueberries even without net, we will see how long that lasts…
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I feel like I’m beating a dead horse and sounding critical. I hope it’s not taken that way. But most of the cherries pictured above aren’t fully ripe IME. Vandalay for instance is black when fully ripe. I won’t call Sandra Rose black but it’s pretty dark. Van, Bing, and Lapins are nearly black. In humid climates and outdoors getting cherries fully ripe is difficult or impossible. Even here my neighbor has given me cherries that she thought ripe but were several weeks from that. Store bought are picked two weeks or more too early. I realize if commercial were picked really ripe they’d be a mess by the time people ate them.
It’s certainly possible to carry a good thing too far. Cherries tend to soften and rot even in my greenhouse if left on the tree too long. I’ve lost some waiting too long. In my greenhouse it’s usually past full color sometimes a couple of weeks past when they go bad.
Colors when ripe in my greenhouse.
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Scott, how firm are your black gold? Mine small crop was eaten by birds this year. But @mamuang has mentioned that hers get soft. But many of the descriptions for black gold describe it as a firm cherry. Which I prefer.
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I would not call them firm. The problem is they are firm when they are red but as fruitnut points out they are not ripe then. For BG in particular its a horrible cherry when firm (at least on my tree) as they have no sugar or flavor. The ones I was picking today are somewhat soft, but at least they have flavor. Overall Black Gold is a mediocre cherry for me; the main advantage is you get a lot of fruit and it did not crack at all in spite of tons of rain. Once the other cherries are in full production I will be top working it to something else.
@fruitnut, its hard to be too sure on color from pictures, the Black Golds I picked looked nearly black on the tree but the picture in the bowl doesn’t show them that way. Compare the tree to the bowl picture. That said, I agree most people pick sweet cherries far too early. I get a little better at it every year…
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I think people do it so they’ll get a few instead of the birds taking them all
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Yes I fully realize that. I’m just trying to offer a perspective that’s hard to achieve under many conditions.
My point is sweet cherries can be sweet well before they are fully ripe. They get sweeter as they get riper. I learned as a kid that in the store you pick out the black Bings not the red ones.
I probably spent close to $1,000 trying to grow them outdoors only to end up cutting them all down. I didn’t learn anything about varieties, fruit maturity, or eating quality. Just all the ways to fail. Coon and birds were one issue, freezes another. Then canker killed some trees. My insights if any, are hard won.
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Well thanks, I took notes! I need to add another cherry, but I also need to find place for it. Black Eagle or Van sounds good, anybody know where to get Eagle?
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Thank you for the great discussion and learned a lot.
I feel whitegold and blackgold both have thicker cherry “skin”, maybe that’s what make it rain crack proof?
Below is my 2017 experience:
White gold ripening color. It does taste sweeter if pick later, but they lost the yellow cherry color very quickly. I can no longer call it yellow cherry 
June 1
June 3
June 5
June 7
June 9
Black Gold on June 11
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What kind of netting is that? The holes look small enough that the cherries won’t poke thru
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White Gold isn’t white and it’s not yellow. It might be yellow if ripened in low light. It may be similar to Rainier which is a blush. Rainier would be yellow when ripe if the fruit ripened in darkness. It blushes up reddish where it gets sunlight. And if you look at my pictures it can be nearly fully reddish when ripe enough in good light. It looks best when a mix of yellow and reddish blush.
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I use recycled package materials. For example: the bags they used to package the citrus we bought from supermarket. picture source: “http://img11.deviantart.net/c853/i/2012/336/2/c/mini_oranges_by_ejsalvillaanasarias-d5mtoki.jpg”
Although they are small net bag and I can only cover the “big” cluster of cherry. I think they work surprisingly well. Maybe they share the same effects as scare tape(?) or birds this year are not as aggressive.
Thanks
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Thanks - I’m on a quest for the perfect netting
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I’ve read that the old variety Gold is pure yellow when ripe with no blush. It is also supposed to be very cold-hardy, productive, late-ripening and a good pollenizer.
Here Montmorency is beginning to be ripe, I also had my first taste of Carmine Jewels (though they’re still red) and was pleasantly surprised. I like them more than Monte and could eat them out of hand pretty easily at this point, but will save them mostly until the darken and become fully ripe. I’ll also get to taste a couple Blackgolds in a week or two if the birds don’t get them.
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