I never saw any pest that would eat it. No insect, no bird, no mammal. NOTHING would eat the fruit except the occasional human and they would only eat one or two. There are more critters that will eat Osage orange seeds than will eat any part of che fruit.
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My 4 yr… CHE today… we are well into fall here.
Found the last two ripe fruits today and ate both.
Juicy sweet flavorful… any critter that would eat a nice sweet ripe watermelon would eat CHE fruit if they just knew how they tasted.
CHE are a little like figs… in that you really need to wait until they are in that final ripening phase… to get the best flavor.
I had the pleasure of finding 6 or 7 perfectly ripe the other day… and loved each one.
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What cultivar is in this picture? They look huge!
I was interested in obtaining a scion of Che as I have a couple of Osage where it could be grafted. But I do know what ‘insipid’ means, and it doesn’t inspire me to search for that seedless Che! Thanks for the details and information.
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@plumcots Ha! Insipid basically boils down to “you won’t like this one”, but my example will be kousa dogwood fruit. I’ve had amazing ones and horrid ones, and my experience is in conflict with some of the general trends I see online. A lot boils down to timing. And a lot boils down to a first experience.
For Che, many of the places pushing certain cultivars have a living example on their property. Catching a farm tour at the right time is the best way to know if you want to invest in it. And seedless tends to not stay seedless if there is a pollinator nearby.
Either the local deer or the groundhog like mine enough that I may never experience fruit because they seem to eat all the new growth when my back is turned. I went the way of "If I don’t like it, I can always remove it.
Note that a lot of things taste more true after they have fruited two or three years. That usually means better, but there is always the potential that you’ll prefer the taste from a juvenile tree better than the adult version. We tend to give young trees more effort and neglect established trees more too, which could affect what the plant has to work with in any given year.
This year I got a few scions from Cliff England (England’s Orchard) and also a few from Marta (Really Good Plants), they were both very reasonably priced and in good condition. Cliff has a much wider selection:
The pictures of fruit and tree immediatly above… are of my California dreaming seedless CHE… got it in 2020 from Cliff at Englands orchard.
It fruited and ripened first fruits last year fall 2023.
The fruit is sweet and has a nice very ripe watermelon/raspberry flavor. Nice texture similar to strawberry and quite juicy.
I grafted a scion of it to osage orange this spring and it is doing outstandingly well. Growing like a weed.
You can normally get scionwood from Englands Orchard in season.
Late this winter… I can offer scion from my tree… perhaps for a trade.
TNHunter
Late summer … early fall (Aug 31 2024).
Here comes those delicious watermelon/raspberry CHE fruits again.
Most of mine are red or turning at this point some have sized up some… none have dropped yet. Perhaps they all hang on and ripen this year.
TNHunter
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Yours are significantly further along than mine are now.
I have seen birds taking the fruit, though I find far more of them just fall uneaten. I bring some to school for the kids in garden club each year, the kids are more willing to try these than pawpaws.
I want to try and freeze dry them, but our freeze drier is still boxed up. Anyone tried to freeze dry any of these?
@Chills … we had some brutal hot and dry weather mid June to mid July… then a small break with rain…and the extreme hot and dry came back and lasted most of the month of August.
Many trees are already showing fall colors and dropping leaves here… they have been stressed big time this summer.
I have had to water quite a bit this summer where I normally water none.
I expext that may have my CHE ahead of schedule some. Good news is it has not dropped any fruit.
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Hi,
Do you absolutely need a male to get fruit from named cultivars? Or they’ll give normal production without any male?
@jxz7245 … I get nice fruit from my CHE (pic above) and I only have the one tree.
Got mine from Cliff at Englands Orchard… it is named… California dreaming seedless CHE.
TNHunter
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Cliff told me that Che is parthenocarpic and that, like its relative the fig, the flowers ARE the fruit.
I’ve also read that che needs hot weather to room, but pollination helps the fruits ripen earlier in places with cooler summers.
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When I visited Englands Orchard this past fall… he had lots of CHE… and the fruit on most of them were larger than mine.
But they were also full of crunchy seeds.
He must have male CHE in the mix there.
I tasted of several CHE there but only found one that tasted similar to my California Dreaming seedless CHE and it was seeded as well.
Most of the CHE I tried there had big seeded fruit… but they lacked flavor compared to my seedless CHE.
I am going to keep mine seedless… no males.
TNHunter
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Is anyone here growing the che from Oregon Exotics? Marta seems to like it and thinks it has a chocolately taste which is quite different than the flavors being described in this thread till now.
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