Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age

thank goodness for antiques!

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I was heart-broken when I started to pick my Carmine Jewels to discover they had rot again, even though I sprayed them once with dormant copper and three times with Immunox. I’ve yet to harvest a crop on my dozen or more cherry bushes after ten years. Then little white wriggly worms crawled out of the ruined cherries in a bucket the next day. There were probably three or four gallons of cherries on the bushes, so I didn’t pick them all. I opened the net, hoping the birds will eat them.

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That would be tough to take year after year. My hats off to you for your persistence

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What came first, the maggots or the rot? One usually leads to the other.

My CJ are getting hammered by Japanese Beetles this year. Like the birds, they always get the best ones on the outside of the bush. :confounded:

Are you the one that said there are differences between some of these type stoners and some might work with CJ while others won’t?

yup, you can buy one now that doesn’t work well, the side plates aren’t adjustable and small pitts in carmine get through. this one is adjustable and works great!

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if you have swd, which it sounds like, your cherries will rot from that…

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@northwoodswis4,
Like others said, you probably got SWD which made rotting worse.
Spotted wing drosophila | UMN Extension

I use Indar which is more efeective on brown rot in cherries than Immunox. If you can’t find Indar, Bonide Infuse fungicide should work ,too.

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I purchased a no.16 from e-bay for $14. I was the only bidder. Mine isn’t adjustable but I think can rig it so it will work by putting a clip on one side of the wheel and blocking the wider side at the top so the cherries will have to go on the tighter side. Otherwise the gap goes back and forth. It comes apart too so I could remove some steel and close the gap up that way. It was $24 with shipping. It will last a long time. It’s made well. Is yours a number 17, or 18? How wide is the gap set to make it work?

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This seems very early for SWDs. Does that mean they are a danger to the blueberries, too. So far, so good there.

Is Infuse systemic? I hesitate to use a systemic. Will Spinosad do any good on SWDs? Can I mix it with the Immunox next year? If I add Surround, will it be easy to wash off from cherries?

swd usually starts here about the 1st week of July, this year it arrived about 2 weeks early

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surprised you guys have got it there. it still hasn’t shown up here, knock on wood, and I’ve been diligently looking. plenty of damned stink bugs though!

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Carmine Jewell is light on blooms this year due to variety of conditions from diseases that cause yellowing of leaves, age of bushes, competing trees maturing nearby. It’s 4am on April 20th 2021 and these bushes are covered in a heavy blanket of snow. Typically I spray a fungicide for leaf issues but was not up to it last year. I’m very happy everyone has done so well with these cherries you just need some patience. It’s siblings Juliet and Romeo seem equally hardy. Time will tell if they due as well in Kansas.

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This is my 3rd leaf carmine jewel. Panhandle of Texas. It gets fairly cold and very hot. Lots of wind and the bush seems to thrive.

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I think this is one of the most productive things I’m growing for the relatively small space it takes up. I love these bushes. Here is a video from today… almost pie time!

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@Mpigg @zendog as you can see above in 2015 and 2016 when i started getting heavy crops of carmine jewell it felt like it had taken forever. It’s so good to see you all getting heavy yields of cherries and knowing production will go up! Romeo is a very heavy producer! @39thparallel might post some pictures of hos this year. @zendog like you i have many new bushes popping up all over i began to notice once the bush was mature. What i tell everyone about these cherries learn from my mistakes and apply manure or compost asap they are heavy feeders. The amount they produce is simply amazing! You guys are doing a great job of growing these!

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The only reason I gave them a chance is because of your success. Thanks Clark

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@Mpigg

Your not only having success they look like you can barely hold them back. I’m very happy they are getting the recognition they deserve. You did a fantastic job growing those. I was interested in them for years prior to them being imported into the United States from Canada where they were grown in a home by a genteman who worked for the goverment but not at the University of Saskatchewan. The university cherry program was pretty much terminated. DNA gardens Unique Zone 2 Hardy fruit trees like Treasured Red, Black Currant Plants | Elnora, AB and others grew them from tissue culturing and eventually they became very popular in Canada. Evans a seedling rumored to be of montmorency was very popular in Canada in those days named after Dr. Evans its founder Evans Cherry - Wikipedia. Evans is still popular to this day. Dr meader was also working on developing bush cherries in the usa around the same time carmine jewell was released. Later i began growing joel as well.
Jan, Joel, Joy Dr. Meader cherries. It took me a long time to get the meader cherries as they were frequently sold out. They are much smaller bushes. I even looked at getting an importer liscense to order some carmine jewell but the cost was pretty high for cherry bushes. They introduced the romance series cherries soon after carmine jewell. The north star cherry which i grow is a parent in the breeding project. The university was going to scrap the cherry project but then there was a discovery. Les Kerr was working in private since the 1940s to improve the quality of sour cherries BBC - Travel - The secret cherry taking over Canada. “As a lone grower, he was doing work no-one else thought could be done.” He was a goverment employee near his death that revealed the plants he grew at home and then the university continued to work with them. I was ecstatic when gurneys paid the import fees and offered the bushes. I bought them as soon as they were available for sale in this country. Some friends who were having problems growing cherries in this area are now consistently getting heavy yields. They are very resistant to common cherry diseases. We are very fortunate to have bushes like these available to us. Glad you and @zendog are spreading the word everyone needs these in their back yard! Apparently honeyberryusa came into this picture as well like gurneys offerring carmine jewell. Who knows maybe they even imported them first but whats important they are here now. We ordered canadian cherry plants from both nurseries through the years. Are they all identical plants? No they are not i had a carmine jewell that bloomed later than all the others suggesting they were not all genetically the same plant at first. They are i believe the same more or less now. The carmine jewell i grew that was different did not grow as fast and remained shorter in the row. All the others were exactly the same plant. Carmine jewell and all the romance series cherries are Prunus cerasus aka north star x Prunus fruiticosa aka Mongolian cherry Canadian Dwarf Sour Cherries – Prunus x kerrasis — Carrington REC . Carmine jewell was the first in 1999 to be released Sour Cherries - University of Saskatchewan Fruit Program - University of Saskatchewan

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Romeo is a smaller bush then CJ. It seems to start bearing faster then CJ. Harvest seems to be a little later than CJ so I’m still waiting on fruit.

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