Carmine Jewel will flower in the South

General Fruit Growing
#1

Carmine Jewel will flower in the South even in a low chill hour year. I will have to wait and see if it fruits this far south.

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#2

Looking forward to seeing how well they do in your area. Now I wish that I had gone ahead and ordered a few. Bill

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#3

Please keep us updated. I’m like @Auburn, I really wanted to order some of these, as well as the rest of the Romance series, but I couldn’t find any information about anyone growing them in my zone. You’re a pioneer, as near as I can tell.

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#4

I got fruit on mine last year, and this year looks like they will bloom strong. In Ga zone 7a. I was impressed the foliage stood up better to SE climate probably better than any other stone fruit I have.

#5

I’m in 7b, so that’s great to hear, but now I’m really kicking myself. Maybe I’ll order some to plant in the fall. How did they taste, by the way, and what other stone fruit do you have?

#6

I think this is updated. I don’t put the spray effort into stone fruit I should. I will likley be removing many of them. I have eaten very little stone fruit with late spring freezes and a poor spray program. I have good fruit on my sour cherries however. To me the Carmine Jewel tasted similar to North Star, but I was not eating them side by side.

Montmorency Cherry
North Star Cherry
North Star Cherry sdlg
Golden Sweet Apricot
Tomcot Apricot
Robada Apricot
Santa Rosa Plum
Burgandy Plum dead?
Shiro Plum
Methley Plum
Belle of Georgia Peach
Elberta Peach
Early Elberta Peach
Carmine Jewell Cherry
Dandy Dapple Pluot
Flavor Finale Pluot
Flavor Grenade Pluot
Flavor King Pluot
Spring Satin Plumcot
Ozark Preimer Plum
AU Rubrum Plum
Morris Plum
Red Haven Peach
Flat Wonderful Peach
Satsuma Plum
Diamond Princess Peach
Sweet Treat Pluerry
Balaton Cherry dead
Orangered Apricot

#7

I have a Carmine Jewel that is about to bloom in VA, zone 7a.

#8

Is Carmine Jewel under patent?

#9

Thanks for the report, it’s encouraging. I’m in Zone 9b, but I love tart cherry and am willing to experiment. We normally have from 700 to 1000 chill hours annually, so I hope this will be enough. I planted Carmine Jewel, Juliet (x2), and Romeo (x2) in November '15 and expect arrival of Crimson Passion (x3) and Lutowka from HoneyberryUSA next week. I also planted Balaton and Jubileum about two weeks ago.

#10

Stan, I was expecting you will also mention Cupid, but unfortunately no. I wanted to buy Cupid but supposedly it’s very hard to propagate (not sure what is the difference compared to others) so I am going with Romeo and Crimson Passion.
c5tiger, it seems like this variety was never patented. Cupid’s application was withdrawn

#11

That is more than I usually get, 700 would be our average. High heat and humidity has little effect on them, they are quite hardy. I had a lapins cherry for a while but it never flowered and suffered in the summer heat, these do much better.

#12

Thanks for the report. Thats very good news. There have been a few reports of the romance series fruiting in low chill places like Las Vegas. Thats what made me jump into the game. They do very well here in Phoenix, either on thier own roots or grafted to other cherries. In the coming years we will see if they will fruit too.

#13

Paul, I didn’t find a source to buy Cupid in the US. I bought all my UoS bush cherries from HoneyberryUSA, and they don’t offer Cupid.

#14

We have low humidity, and sweet cherries fruit before real heat hits in July. There exist several commercial sweet cherry orchards not far from where I live (most that I know of are in the Byron/Brentwood area which has very similar climate, perhaps 1–2 degrees cooler in summer). If UoS tart cherries tolerate summer heat well, they should grow fine in my area (provided adequate irrigation). The main question is whether they will fruit.

#15

You can’t get Cupid or Valentine in the US.

#16

I am from Europe and 1 nursery carries them all (I found Carmine Jewel in several) but when I asked about Cupid I was told by the owner it’s difficult to propagate. Not sure about Valentine. Who knows, maybe that’s a reason why they are not common/available in US either.

#17

THanks for posting that info. Unlike many others here who were smart enough to wait before reports like yours before ordering, I went ahead and ordered several romance cherries myself this year from Honeyberry USA. As another zone 7a grower, its nice to hear I probably didn’t waste my money.

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#18

Carmine Jewel would flower every year like crazy in zone 10a, but would never set any fruit. After four years I finally moved it to the mountains.

#19

What was the cause, too much heat? Are they doing better in the mountains?

#20

A cherry grower from the central valley said lack of chill would cause blossoms not to set. The same thing happed with our Royal Rainier cherry tree that would explode in blossoms and not set anything, despite the Lapins branch that I grafted in as a pollinator. Not sure how its doing in the mountains, they get 2,500 chilling hours so probably not a problem.