I had a small sample of Carmine fruit on some of the 2024 grafts. The larger Carmine fruit is my choice. I added several grafts which grew about 4-5’. I’m spectating that these grafts will produce a decent amount of fruit for 2025 and much more in 2026. I only left a few small limbs of Scarlet and Red Gem for cross pollination.
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@zone7a … at our current home site… I have a sweet scarlet and red gem that I got from OGW and started in ground in 2020.
A couple of springs ago I managed to get scion of Carmine and added 3 grafts.
This past spring those 3 grafts of carmine all produced quite a bit of fruit.
I could not tell any significant difference in their flavor… when tasting all 3 together right off the bush.
I am working on a new orchard at a new home site… and back in July i setup an air layer on one of those carmine grafts.
Once it gets a little more dormant… I am going to separate it from the bush and plant it in my new home site orchard.
I will only have one goumi bush there… Carmine… but will add a few grafts of RG and SS to it for variety and pollination.
TNHunter
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Since it seems that multiple people here are primarily grafting over to ‘Carmine’ with only a few branches of ‘Sweet Scarlet’ or ‘Red Gem’ left for cross pollination, I would encourage you to just not worry about it. I planted my ‘Carmine’ quite far from my other goumi berries and it still sets heavy crops despite the bees not being able to quickly bounce back and forth between cultivars. I’m sure that a small percentage of the flowers must occasionally get pollen from another cultivar, but really it seems to be self fertile.
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LOL – I didn’t know that this was even a concern. I planted 6 Carmines and they are bearing abundantly. There’re probably no other goumi plants within many miles.
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Both Tillamook specimens are loaded with blossoms this year. I’m going to be smart this time and use netting to let the fruit hang a long time without bird snacking, and then enjoy when they’re super ripe.
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I learned this year that deer will eat goumi leaves. They got most of them from my transplanted Sweet Scarlett that I didn’t bother to cage. Had I known, I probably wouldn’t have pruned the leader, although I think its still high enough that they won’t eat the highest leaves.
It had been in an enclosure maybe 30x30 feet made of cattle panel. So the deer could have easily jumped, but I hadn’t noticed browsing before. Perhaps there were so many trunks and leaves that I just didn’t notice. I also still have a mostly Red Gem in the enclosure so I can look and see if they’ve been nibbling on it.
I prefer the flavor and sweetness of Sweet Scarlett, but it is a lot more work to eat. They also ripen sooner which is a plus.
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