Hope this link on prickly pear cactus helps us guide this topic back to carmine jewell cherries Prickly Pear Cactus. When people google carmine jewell we dont want them scratching their heads saying what in the world was that cactus discussion about in the cherry category?
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Haha, my bad. Sorry about that, I just get excited about cold hardy cactus. I have been enjoying this CJ thread and I have plans to add one in the one of the next phases of my orchard.
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I had a problem with overcropping on one of my CJ bushes last year. I was immediately concerned about the leaf/fruit ratio when I saw how much more fruit set on this one bush compared to the other two. As time went by, the fruit development did lag behind the other two bushes. The situation got worse when it started raining every day about 2 weeks into the picking window. The overcropped bush developed a blight (cherry leaf spot?) and partly defoliated. Needless to say, the cherries on this bush never developed full size and color. On the other hand, the other 2 bushes didn’t get the blight and had perfect cherries about the size of nickels. I put 70 lbs. of cherries in the freezer. Figuring in the losses, the two good bushes had to produce at least 40 lbs. each, which is in the normal range.
I’m not sure what happened. It’s like the chicken and egg scenario. Did overcropping make the bush more susceptible to disease, or did some imbalance cause the overcropping? The bush was fine the previous year.
I also wonder if I should have manually thinned the bush. I’ve never heard of anyone thinning their bush cherries.
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@AJfromElmiraNY
Thats actually normal. When carmine jewell is young it has a tendency to under produce since most flowers dont make fruit. Pollination appears to be a problem for young carmine jewell cherries. As the bush ages every flower makes a cherry which reduces cherry size. In addition to that they heavily sucker as they age. That takes energy from developing fruit as well. Im glad you brought that accurate observation up but for most people that wont happen until year 6-9 of growing them.
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Have you every sprayed for cherry leaf spot? I’ve never had an issue with it before.
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Yes sour cherry leaf spot is the only disease carmine jewell have a problem with Sour Cherry Leaf Spot
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Wow, looks like a bumper crop though if a freeze don’t get them. Low of 27 here tomorrow night and my peaches and apricots are in full bloom.
I hope that prediction is wrong. 27 F is at the danger temp for blooming peaches and apricots per this chart.
https://extension.usu.edu/productionhort/files-ou/CriticalTemperaturesFruitTrees.pdf
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Yikes, I wish you luck with those lows. Fortunately there is nothing below 40 at night in the 10-day forecast for me and by April 15 we are usually past all frosts, but it ain’t over until it’s over.
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Hi CT Duck Hunter,
I looked at your profile -
Contender, Red Haven, PF 19-007, Allstar, Reliance, Spring Snow, Julyprince, Baby Crawford, Intrepid, PF-9A007
How do these peach varieties produce for you? Hope your peaches make it through 27F, might be a blessing if it thins the peaches some.
Thanks,
Spud
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Lets hope the wind keeps ripping through here it adds protection. Freezing rain etc is all bad but snow on the blossom is not necessarily bad. The things like apricots that are open it looks bad for them.
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@SpudDaddy I have around 25 peach trees and they are all 3 years and younger. Wish I could tell you more. I have pretty much based all my peach decisions on what @Olpea grows and reports on because there are no peach tree growers really close to me to ask for advice that I am aware of. My state spends all their research money on corn, wheat, and soybeans so there is very little research on fruit trees. There is some older research but nothing with some of these new varieties. The best new research on fruit trees in Kansas comes from @clarkinks and @39thparallel
I sure hope so too Clark, looks like your low is around 30 and mine is 27 right now. I’m thinking about wrapping a couple of my trees with frost blankets from my asparagus patch so I can maybe try a few of these varieties.
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@Olpea is the real local peach expert and knows a lot about spraying programs in our area. There were some peach varieties developed at the Missouri fruit experiment station which I tried grafting a two years ago. Loring is the most notable and is still grown commercially. Contender, Red haven and Reliance do well here. Bell of Georgia and Saturn are some of my best producers so far.
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@olpea is hands down the best at growing peaches. In my area reliance, contender, and flat wonderful can be grown. All other peaches i tried died eg. Bell of Georgia.
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This freeze coming up is a bad deal. We’ve been watching the forecasts closely. I’ve found those freeze charts more optimistic when everything is bloomed out. In other words, if peaches are completely bloomed out about 30F will start to kill blooms. 28F will kill just about all of them. If there are still some closed, then those will survive fairly cold temps.
We are in full bloom in my locale, with a few blooms at petal fall. It was about 31F this morning. Who knows what it will be tomorrow morning, but temp forecasts are lower.
We’ve been pruning for the last week or so. I wish these weather forecasters would have been a little more accurate (they weren’t calling for a freeze at all). If we had known it was going to freeze, we would have started leaving more wood.
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Full bloom here too. NWS called for 32 last night and 27 tonight. It got down to 27 here last night, and now calling for 26 tonight. I’m pretty sure mine are toast!
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There are some which look at least partially closed up on that tree. Maybe some will survive. And maybe you’ll have a little better results than I have with temperatures. That tree looks unpruned. Unpruned trees have a tad bit hardier blooms, than recently pruned trees, or so I once read.
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Here is what my peaches looked like yesterday…
Apricot
Here is what my temp looked like at about 7am. I kept checking and rechecking… surely that doesn’t say 26!!!
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My Juliet cherries are in full bloom. My Carmine Jewels are only a couple days behind. The good news is that there still doesn’t appear to be any cold weather predicted.
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