Mine started fruiting fairly quickly, maybe 3 years? It was a while ago, so I can’t swear to it. Zone 6, eastern ma. But it seems like a lot of trouble to graft to maybe gain a year.
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Kevin,
At the time, I was not the only one frustrating with Danube being unproductive. There were a few of us. However, there was one member who said she had more success and that could be because of better cross pollination.
Danube may be pickier about its cross pollination partner than other cherry varieties. You may want to plant another Hungarian-bred sour cherry for its partner.( fortunately, Hungary has bred several)
Your tree is still young. It may take longer time to be productive. I think I took mine out after 5 years and got about 20 cherries.
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my grafting to precosious rootstock was not neccesarely ment to make it produce sooner. But just to make it less unproductive.
Whith sweet cherry’s there seems to be a production difference between rootstocks of the same size. I remember a document (the greg lang document?) mentioning that certain varieties that are hard to get producing should be planted on the more productive gisela 5 for example. And the self fertile often overproducing varieties would match Krymsk 6 better, since you’d need to thin less. (krymsk 6 is suppposed to be less productive/precosious than gisela 5. but roughly same size)
@mamuang
Do you remember the Danube having few flowers? or did it have plenty of flowers, just little cherry’s. Do you think it was a flower bud production problem? a flower pollination problem? or maybe both?
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Ah, i understand now. You are taking about coaxing Danube into production. I thought you were talking about the romance cherries, which are pretty productive on their own roots.
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I hope you are right about Danube still having more of a chance, but we aren’t off to a good start with 2 cherries on the whole tree! It is young, so I’ll hold out hope. As for polination, within a 40 foot radius, and most within 15 feet, I have 2 Montmorency, 1 Early Richmond, 1 North Star, 3 kinds of sweet cherry (probably no help there), 2 kinds of cherry hybrids (also probably no help), and some bush cherries that probably aren’t helpful for polinators. But I expected the 3 other sour cherries might help. They are all taller and right beside my Danube and their petals fall all over it so their pollen must also. Thats why I have little hope.that I can do better. I’m honestly not sure where to find a list or source for other Hungarian Cherries. The only one I can think of is Balaton and as I recall its self fertile? If you have a list or a source I’d like to see it. thanks
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Please see this thread.
Hungarian pie cherries-Jubileum, Danube, Balaton, and.....? - #29 by wfwalton.
@HighandDry has been successful but it looks like it takes several year to start being productive.
@thecityman Look like all you can do is waiting for the tree to mature. Just don’t let deer munch your trees.
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look into the Lutowka rose polish cherry. its the most grown sour cherry in europe. by year 5 its 3xs more productive than any of the romance series and has a bigger cherry that is less acidic. i got one 2 years ago from Honeyberry USA. went from a 6in stick to 3ft in 2 seasons. unfortunitly they dont carry them anymore.
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Until this year, I felt like I have suffered from every major fruit tree problem in existence with two notable exceptions: I’d never been hit by peach tree borers and never had any deer damage. Well, now I can say I have had to deal with almost every single major fruit tree problem (I know there are thousands of fruit tree issues, I’m just talking about the really big, really common ones). Sadly, I discovered lots of borer fras and sap and holes and then in the last 2 months I’ve had deer just devour several of my fruit tree foliage!!! Especially my hazelnuts and a couple pluots. So I’[m sure they will be back! So I’m sorry to say deer may well end up making my danube tree their breakfast. I have way too many trees to try to cage them all and I can’t afford to fence in the entire 2 acre area of my orchard. Also don’t really want to start doing electric wires or anything else. I am a deer hunter so come fall I may be doing it from my back porch instead of driving 100 miles, hiking 1.5 miles, putting up a stand, etc. ha.
@steveb4 You really make those sound awesome. if you or anyone else knows a source for Lutowka Cherry trees, please let me know. I cant imagine anything being more productive than Romance series bush cherries, but if Lutowka is then I’m darn sure willing to try one. Especially if they are less sour than Romance (less acidic might translate to less sour??)
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That’s a great idea. I made cherry syrup, dried (sweetened) cherries, cherry jam, cherry juice, and also just can them in plain water or a really light syrup. So many uses, all delicious! The juice is fantastic on its own, imo. But mixed with a club soda & a splash of lime makes an original cherry limeade.
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I just bought Valentine at Costco in Fairbanks. I attended the NAFEX conference in Saskatoon a few years back and was able to taste all of the Romance series and Carmine Jewel. Bob Bors, the breeder, stated Juliet was his favorite for eating out of hand, and I agreed with his assessment. All but Valentine have fruited for me in Fairbanks, and Juliet is still the winner so far. It’s important to let these fully ripen though; brix increases the longer they hang, and some have been put off by eating underripe fruit. The USask website has color charts for each variety.
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USask is has released the Three Musketeers series of bush cherries in Europe. Look for Athos, Porthos, and D’Artagnon.
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Lutowka is very productive, but the fruit is small size and more acidic than most bush cherries. In Europe, it’s considered a “technical” cultivar — used mostly for processing. Other varieties with larger and sweeter fruit are used for fresh eating. BTW, English Morello cherry (sold by Dave Wilson) is the same thing as Lutowka (the polish transcription is Łutówka). Also the German cherry called Schattenmorelle. It’s a very old variety known under different names in different countries.
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For those who find tart cherries too sour for fresh eating, here’s a recipe that I invented about 35 year ago and that became very popular in my extended family. Cook some pasta. Pit your tart cherries (don’t cook them!). Mix pasta, cherries, and sugar (you will find the ratio of pasta/cherries/sugar that is right for you by experimenting, everybody’s taste buds are different). Mix well and let it stay for 10-15 minutes, so the pasta absorbs all that cherry juice. Enjoy!
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ive read the opposite. ive seen a review of it compared to the romance series cherries. it was the biggest of all of them and as far as brix goes it wasnt as sweet but also had less acidity than some of the others. it is also 2xs more productive by the 5th year. dont remember the website. just google ‘’ lutowaka rose polish sour cherry reviews’’. thats how i found it.
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agresearch.montana.edu/warc/research_current/berries/cherries.html
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Steve, I grow Lutowka along with bush cherries (Carmine Jewel, Juliet and Romeo), so I have first hand knowledge. Also, in my younger days I ate a lot of European tart cherry varieties and later read multiple descriptions of these varieties (including Lutowka) from European researchers and growers. Lutowka is somewhat on par with Carmine Jewel for me, while Juliet is a bit larger and sweeter. All of them are inferior size-wise and flavor-wise to “table” varieties like Balaton and Danube. There are tons of great “table” tart cherry varieties in Eastern Europe. Univ. of Michigan has brought here three Hungarian varieties, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to what is grown overseas.
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just going on what the review said. it does say its on par flavor wise to carmine jewel but claimsits bigger than all of them. maybe different growing conditions?
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I’ll do a measurement later this summer. Visually, Lutowka is about the size of Carmine Jewel and smaller than Juliet. All of them would be (and Lutowka is) considered “technical” varieties in Europe, mostly usable for processing.
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I love Morello cherries for cooking. Are the U Sask cherries similar?
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They are not similar, they are morello cherries. Morello only means that the flesh is red, as opposed to the other type amarelle that has light colored flesh like Montmorency.
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