My 25 year old che does that every year, orange to barely red and drops. Only got a few red, soft, chewy ones 1 time; nice mulberry flavor.
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Mine has definietly died. I’m sure I’ll be fighting the rootstock pushing growth over the next couple years. The plant seems to have undergone some kind of vascular damage (perhaps a very delayed graft rejection…10+ or so years)
I was hoping to find some higher wood still viable and regraft to the very well established roots, but i’m not seeing anything scratching green…
Scott
Is yours grafted onto Osage orange like mine?
yes.
The osage part of the tree is about 5.5 inches across. The Che part has shrunk to being only about 4.25 inches across.
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Hi!!! Anybody knows if che tree can live in places with very high temperatures in summer? 113 °F (45°C). I have 2 small trees, and in 1-2 years i’d like to put them in direct sun.
Here there are some osage oranges trees in the parks, and they look good
It hit 114° here some years ago, hot humid summers. 22° below at night for a week 2 years ago winter. My che looks the same for over 25 years.
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It has no problem with day time temps below 114.
They’re pretty trees. Just a shame the fruit is so mediocre.
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Summary of thread so far:
Very easy to grow.
Best grafted on osage orange to prevent suckering.
Pollination is not required for most available trees, but might benefit early fruit ripening and/or prevent fruit drop.
Ripening is late season, but highly variable according to climate. Full ripeness occurs a week or so after color change. Fruit drop off a very common issue, particularly with young trees. Mild climates and dry and/or poor soil seem to cause issues with fruit drop/late ripening as well.
The fruit itself,
Sweetness: sweet
Texture: unique, it is toothsome, like marshmallow, but also juicy with some bite like citrus, but also aggregate like raspberry
Flavor: mild, watermelon, melon, and fig are the most common descriptions, with some mention of raspberry and mulberry. Must be fully ripe.
Personal verdicts: most described the fruit as alright, ok, or decent. Three or four forum members said the fruit is very good or delicious. Two or three forum members did not like the fruit. One forum member has been spamming the thread for the past 3 years or so with a very negative review of the flavor. Also a handful of reports that children seem to like them more than adults like them (the fruits being sweet but mild, this would make sense).
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Thank you, I am calmer that they can survive those temperatures😄
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I did notice broken seeds in my package. I think he processes the fruit for seed production by blending it… wouldn’t be my first choice given the odds of seeds breaking, but there it is. If blending, I’d try to figure out a way to separate broken seeds from whole ones.
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I took some cuttings off both the spurs, the male and the unknown. Both are sprouting!
Additionally, I managed to acquire a pair of Norris Che cuttings, which have also started sprouting.
Looks like I’ll be able to attempt the cross-breeding.
Now my big question… is there even the slightest hope that I can successfully fruit them in a pot? The spur trees have been a (¿literal?) thorn in my family’s side since they grew big, and I’d rather not put another huge thorny tree right next to them. Pots would be ideal, I can move them off to the sides and prune off the thorns if I wish.
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I don’t think so because they take a lot of years to fruit… and they grow fast and a lot!
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I’m sure it’s been addressed earlier, and I’m not gonna read back through 450 posts… but it’s my understanding that Che, on it’s own roots, is a suckering thorny monster that you’ll eventually need a bulldozer to get rid of.
I picked up a bag containing a couple of sticks of ‘Huang Kum’ scionwood at the recent KNGA meeting… thinking it was a D.kaki persimmon. Pulled it out yesterday, and thought to myself… “This looks more like Che than persimmon…” I could only really identify one good bud, so I stuck a piece containing it, on a persimmon rootstock… but just didn’t feel right about it, so I looked it up, and indeed it is a Che selection… so I cut it off and replaced it with a persimmon graft.
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If you want to grow che, then graft it onto osage orange rootstock. Rooted che cuttings are HIGHLY INVASIVE. They will send out roots 20 feet away and those roots will send up new che growth that has massive thorns. Che trees on their own roots will create thickets of horny growth. If your state has an invasive species list, che is probably worse than many of the plants already listed on it.
You can fruit them in a pot but it takes a large pot and years to do so,. There is literally no point to crossing che trees. They are all very similar genetically. You will always get fruit that tastes like che fruit. The number of che cultivars in China is tiny for two big reasons - the fruit is always very similar, and the fruit is not well liked, so it is seldom sold commercially and so there is no need for new cultivars. There are at least 100 fruit trees that the Chinese can grow that have better fruit than che.
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This thread will never die, every year it comes back. I remember when I first looked at the thread and I was on the che train. You were the main one talking trash about che, but I took your advice and never got one. As a matter of fact I couldn’t find anyone that said anything good about che. It’s not like pawpaw and persimmon. There are no che cults.
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I was big on che from about 1991-96 and bought every cultivar I could find. That’s how I learned how worthless it was. There was no internet to warn me. Just nurseries telling everyone how this wonderful fruit had been “overlooked”.
Now we have the internet so there’s no reason people have to spend 5 years or more learning what a mediocre fruit che produces.
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It was more the fruit dropping that turned me off. I already have some persimmons with that problem. Some people said they dropped fruit for 10 years or more before they held.
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@Luisport You break my heart, old friend. But it’s a reality check that I needed. I’ll temper my optimism with patience. 
I should probably do a basic search before asking, but is Osage Orange readily available online? Can it grow from cuttings? How would one germinate seeds?
I trust your judgement. I’m mainly interested in breeding experiments.
I’m not crossing Che, though. I’m crossbreeding Che with Cockspur Thorn (Maclura cochinchinensis). Maybe it’s just marketing hype, but I’ve heard good things about the Spur as a fruit, so I was interested enough to acquire it. In finding out that I have a male tree and that Che cultivars are female, I saw an opportunity too good to pass up. I have no idea what to expect, quality wise, of a hybrid between these two… I just hope it’s better than Che.
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I dunno. Seems to me there’s plenty of taste out there for mediocre fruit. If anything, your description makes it sound rather exceptional.
Is it really too boring, or is it too strange?
More of an outlier or ‘also ran’. It needn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but there seem to be some fans here. Stands to reason, there are probably people in China who like them, but maybe not many. I, for one, would like to try them. I have no intention of putting a lot of work into it, either. Have space, will wait.
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You might be interested in the Osage orange x melonberry hybrid for advancing your work. First created about 100+ years ago. There is at least one clone in a Columbus, Ohio botanical park. A horticulturist in Columbus had several more, male and female, bred in the 1970’s.
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