Anyone Here Growing Royal Rainier Cherry in Zone8?

[joan]

I cant get consistent information from the nurseries offering this tree on chill hours. Some say 500, some say 700 to 800. Thats a huge disparity.
If you are growing Royal Rainier in zone 8 i would love to hear your experience.

[greendumb]

I personally think they need more than 500 chill hours.
I also believe they need to receive them consistently instead of sporadically through the chill cycle.
In other words,if they can get their chill hours all together in January and February instead of some in October,a few in November and December,and some in January and February.
I find this to be true for most cherries when accumulating chill hours,especially in USDA Zone 7a,8 & 8a,but zone 9 is a zone where 500 chill hours in a consistent pattern are highly unlikely.

[mroot]

I don’t have an answer to your question but in North Carolina don’t you get 800 hours of chill or more?

Sweet cherries are tough to grow in the East do you have any experience with sweet cherries? You can do it but it isn’t easy and you probably want to know what you’re up against before you buy a sweet cherry tree. These threads you might find helpful.

Eastern Sweet Cherries

If your not in an area that grows sweet cherries commercially sweet cherries are tough. Are you prepared to spray for brown rot? Are you prepared to put up scare tape or net your trees? If not your probably better off planting something else. Under Eastern Conditions here are some cultivars you might try. Blackgold self-fertile, very late bloomer which is good for late frosts but blooms too late to pollinate many other sweet cherries, crack resistant Whitegold self-fertile, yellow with red…

Reviving the Eastern Sweet Cherry Thread

I have quite a few cherry trees here and looking to graft or replace a couple losers. Wanted to revive this thread to see what has done well or not well for the eastern cherry growers. From what has fruited here the Cornel varieties and the soft varieties like Black Tartarian have somewhat done well for me. Rot hits them, but not out of control. LAPINS is on it’s way out. Has not set a single fruit and has radically uncontrollable growth. It’s not something you are going to keep small. BING …

Here are some posts on how Royal Rainier does in low chill areas, mainly in California. Also some info on low chill sweet cherries. I added the links below.

Rainier cherry tree producing in So Cal?

I would highly recommend Royal Rainier. In San Jose, it has reliably ripened cherries in both low chill and high chill winters. I was told Rainier doesn’t reliably set fruit in low chill years but I don’t have personal experience. I have compared Royal Rainier from my tree with Rainier from Andy’s orchard and other U-picks in Brentwood and I can’t tell the difference. If anything, Royal Rainier is more crisp

2024 Southern California Stone Fruit Bloom Times

Top disappointments in So Cal fruit for me, 2024: Lapins cherry. Reputedly low chill, it blooms pretty late for me and never sets much fruit. It is not as good as Bing. I think it is just self-fertile and therefore looks low chill to some. In my opinion it isn’t, and is not worth trying in inland Southern California. Royal Rainier cherry. Don’t get me wrong, it is good. It just blooms late and has not fruited much for me. I had a lot of test grafts too. You may be able to get some fruit, a…

So Cal (inland) 2021 year round fruit observations

Here are the results of my cherry experiments in low chill inland San Diego. Some of these are just grafts and I am extrapolating. My conclusions are much less certain than for peaches and apricots since cherries do not generate full crops for several years, and pollination in So Cal is unreliable given the erratic bloom. English Morello Bloom: Mid-April to mid-May Harvest: pending Quantity: abundant Comment: This specimen on Gisela 5 from Raintree was planted last year. It is in my “zone 1…

[joan]

thank you!
i searched cherries here but didnt get many results.
I am currently growing low chill varieties,
Minnie Royal
Royal Lee
Stella
Minnie Royal was the first to fruit and I was so happy. no sign of disease yet.
I met the Rainer cherries in Northern California and fell in love. Just wondering if anyone had stepped out on that limb and tried to grow them in my area. (Coastal Carolina)

[kingwood]

Grew royal ranier and lapins @13 years in Kingwood microclimate zone 8 (Houston). Both were on standard rootstock and started blooming at 8 years. Royal ranier looked like white xmas tree every year. Lapins only fruited twice and with only 2 to 3 cherries both times. Had lapins in ground and royal ranier in container. Got frustrated and trashed both because I could not find a pollinator for royal ranier. All low chill cherries died of canker quickly. Royal ranier will fruit at your location. I am growing it again on maxma and it has yet to bloom. Hopefully soon. Trying ebony pearl and white gold as pollinators.

[joan]

Thank you for the information kingwood

[HelloooNurse]

Hello, Joan.

I similarly had trouble verifying the minimum chill hour requirement for Royal Rainier online.

Since Rainier cherries are one of my favorite fruits and super expensive in my area, I decided to make my motto “so you’re saying there’s a chance!”

In early March 2024, I received and planted my bareroot Royal Rainier, Craig’s Crimson, and Royal Crimson trees. Wish I could give you better data but we’re still in the first year.

We had an unusually warm and dry spring/early summer in 2024 in the NC coastal plains area. So even with supplemental trickle watering, all my cherry trees were displaying some drought stress symptoms during heat of the day. Royal Rainier was the worst of the 3 cherry trees at dealing with the heat. All trees bounced back in September and still had leaves until first week of December.

I’m a bit worried that I haven’t seen any bloom activity yet, but we have had an unusually cold December and January too. I did a small scratch test and all still have green wood. I’m curious to see if I’ll get a single bloom or only green leaves after 1 year.

Based of comments from other backyard growers (mostly from CA admittedly), it may be 5+ years before I even get blooms at all.

I’ve never been more excited to see what spring will bring!

[letsski]

Northern California grower here - SF Bay Area. Last spring, I grafted Bing, Rainier and Black Tartarian onto my Stella tree. All the grafts took - the Bing and Rainier took off and produced a lot of growth. The Tartarian didn’t do much.

As we are up in the hills, we don’t get much more than 500-700 chill hours, yet the Stella produces 70-80 lbs of fruit a season. Have to spray for brown rot and Spotted Wing fruit fly. Use to net but the wife got tired of the swearing, so we share with the birds.

Based on my experience I would think you have enough chill hours - now cracking and disease is another matter. good luck!

[joan]

Thank you for your observation and welcome!

[joan]

mini royal is blooming her heart out, what a great little tree. 3 years in the ground from willis orchards if anyone is interested in what has done well here.
I dont treat my trees at all. just feed and mulch.

[joan]

thank you Root, i would have never found these