I had two fruit off my White Gold graft. They were similar in texture to BG, somewhat soft. Brix of those two WG was 19.
I picked 95% of my BG today because it will rain tomorrow. I got about 13.5 lbs of good cherries off this 5’ 6” tall tree. There was about 1.5 lbs of bad cherries. Most were mushy, a few cracked and only 3 cherries out of hundreds had brown rot. The power of Indar
I measured BG brix. It ranged from 17-22. The 22 was very nice and sweet. Most were in the 19-20 brix. My first fruit of the year.
When I sampled WG they were not ripe and rather firm. But as they ripened they became softer. I would say semi-firm. I too harvested before the rain. I got about as many as you did. I think they could have used another week. I made note of that in my journal. This was the first full crop.
When I read your other member grow Romance series bush cherries to 8-9 ft, I was like, too tall!!! This BG I pruned it to and umbrella shape, the same way a weeping cherry looks like. It has worked for me. It is very productive tree.
@Drew51, I just want new members to understand that if they think BG or WG would have a similar taste and texture of Bing’s or Rainier’s, they would be diappointed. BG and WG have semi-soft texture and not as sweet. But they do taste like cherries
I picked my Black Gold today after a big rain. Had some cracking, but not as much as I’d thought there would be with so many humid days in the upper 80’s and low 90’s this year. I netted the tree and all the cherries were on the inside of the smooshed canopy and didn’t get much sun. They never really got dark in color, but the brix range was 18-21. They tasted pretty good.
@ztom
Did you spray for brown rot? Had I not sprayed, at least half would have gotten brown rot.
Last week, I used two big tarps spread under my BG tree to keep the soil dry. I am convinced that because of that, there was almost no crack on my cherries after 2-3” of downpour.
Yes true, I agree with you. What I would like to know are others as firm as Bing and Rainier? I would call White and Black Gold semi-firm. I have a Glacier tree at my cottage and it is much softer.
See the difference in our thinking. I call them (BG and WG) semi-soft. You call it semi-firm.
Yes, I do want to know about other sweet cherries like Lapins, Stella, Utah Giant, Sweetheart, Saleh, the Pearl series, etc. if any of them are as firm or almost as firm as Bing or Rainier.
I put a graft of Utah Giant on this year and it is growing like mad. I will have cherries next year. So I can tell you in a year how firm it is. Wondering about Royal Rainier?
I sprayed a few times with Immunox, but I sprayed through the netting. On the cherries that cracked, half of each cherry was actually ok, it was just bad around where they cracked. I carefully tried some of the ones that cracked and they actually tasted ok, but I didn’t want to risk getting too close to the bad spots.
Just ate some BG after refrigerated them. It tastes very nice, cold and sweet on a hot day. Brix average 19-20. Gotta say I am a lot happier with it after I got over the firmness issue.
Ha, ha, ha. I call it “attitude adjustment”. I need to do that once in a while.
So I do like BG on Gisela 5. It is a small tree that is very productive. Now that I am an owner of Indar, brown issue is minmal. I do need to check Elevate to alternate with Indar to avoid resistance.
This year all my J plums, planted next to this Black Gold barely set any fruit.
My Black Gold set a lot but dropped about 50-60% of the cherries. However, if you just look at this tree, you won’t know that because it still carries a lot of cherries.
When ripen, they turn dark red. Usually, I pick them around July 5-7, the first fruit ripen in my yard, not counting strawberries.
Hard to know if they ripened. I went by the picking dates of past years between July 5-15. We have had very goodweather for fruit ripening, many hot days in a row.
This was after a bath. About 5 1/2 lbs of good cherries. We had very wet spray and I sprayed 3 rounds of Indar. The rot has been about 10% of yield. I have about 10 lbs or more to pick
