I grafted che to boisdarc this spring. Had one graft out of four take. Now im looking forward to being disappointed in the fruit here in another 10 years.
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Yes, at least we have something to look forward to
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Osage orange seedlings are not too hard to find. The seed is certainly very easy to find and easy to germinate. A 30 day stratification works fine.
Good to know you are doing some breeding other than che x che. That should be interesting. I doubt that che x Cockspur thorn could be worse than che.
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There’s nothing exceptional about che fruit other than the structure of the fruit. It is a segmented fruit with tough strong tissues that divide the segments. Some people find chewing the segmented fruit structure to be disgusting.
The flavor is most commonly described as insipid. It is very bland and mildly sweet. It has no sourness or acidity and no flavor other than a very mild watermelon type flavor. Che is distantly related to fig and mulberry but the fruit has no mulberry or fig taste at all. Never forget that che’s closest relative is osage orange, which has no flavor and is inedible. Most people think che is OK when they first taste it (I did) but it is so boring that it is rare for anyone to continue eating it after a few seasons of tasting it. It has the exact opposite eating profile of jujubes. With jujubes, the more you eat, the more you like the fruit and the more you will eat in coming years. Jujube consumption increases every year. With che, fruit consumption typically decreases every year until you no longer eat it. For most people, even when they say they really liked the fruit when they first ate it, they bottom out at 2-4 years and never eat another che fruit. I have been watching this pattern repeat for 25 years.
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I definitely disagree with you on flavor. Very mulberry -like to me. First time I tried a ripe one the flavor was something familiar, took several seconds to realize MULBERRY. Then I remembered they’re related
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In addition to taste just being partly subjective, I think the other commentor lives in socal, whereas you’re in Kansas. It’s totally possible that best flavor development is dependant on highly continental climates, hot summers in particular. Mulberry and figs, both related, are very climate driven when it comes to flavor.
But, again, could just be personal tastes, another user on this thread lives in Portugal, which has a very mild climate as well, and they rated che extremely highly.
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I agree, many fruits are like that. Most fall apple’s here are sweet, mealy, and tasteless. Most prunus here, including besseyi hybrids, are flavorful with good sugar development. Shipova is bland, etc.
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I grew che in the Central Valley of California. The summers were far hotter than any midwestern summer.
Additionally, I have had people send me che grown in the southest and midwest and it tasted exactly like che grown in the Central Valley.
And let’s not forget the population of China which almost universally dislikes this fruit. The next time you visit China, try to find anyone there growing che, and try to find it being sold anywhere.
You must have been eating some lousy mulberries!
Our summers easily hit long stretches of 100° with humidity of 40% to 90%.
Wild mulberries, never had the opportunity to eat selected cultivars. Always enjoyed them. I would have been thrilled to have the large - fruited che you have shown in one of your pics. Couldn’t find much for che in the 80’s/90’s when I was looking.
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I said continental, and the central valley is not continental in the slightest. And I don’t put much stock in fruits people mailed to you. Nor do I care if the Chinese like it or not. Aronia is vastly more popular in Europe than the US, Juneberry is almost completely unknown in its native Canada, but you can find it in practically every little village in Siberia, the biggest producer and consumer of American native grapes was the Soviet Union, etc. But regardless, it is an established fact that user “castanea” does not like che. No need to say it again, we already know what your opinion is.
Taste is contextual, dependant on external factors, and partly subjective. We made a conjecture about external factors (ie climate), being the reason why you don’t like them, but it’s just a conjecture. Could be context (maybe you lost a lot of money buying trees you now regret? Maybe you had a stomach bug shortly after eating your first che fruit which subconsciously primed you to dislike it, maybe etc), could objective differences in taste buds (it might literally taste like nothing to you if you don’t happen to have the right receptors at the right places, which wouldn’t mean the fruit is tasteless, only that you can’t taste it), and it could just be subjective difference (you just happen to not like it). But, again, you’ve said your piece, and we can consider your opinion in our own judgement of the fruit, you don’t have to keep hammering us with it.
So far in this thread, while on average people have reported it to be just ok, there are several people who said it’s one of their favorites. That means the fruit is ok, but probably nothing remarkable for the average person, but also some people will very much enjoy it. Maybe don’t get so triggered by the fact other people like things you don’t?
But anyway, this is a tangent, and an unhelpful one at that. 'nuff said.
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Search the forum. See if you can find anyone talking good about che. Those people are scattered all over the country with their experience. Taste description was universal no matter where they lived. Sugar water. Fruit drop was the worst and lasted the longest for east coast growers. West coast people did better in that department. If you have plenty of land and just want it to have it, buy it. If you want something to look forward to, take the others advice.
You didn’t searched well… just saying. This is a delicious fruit with mulberry + watermelon flavor! Juicy and not watery! Not watery! The only negative thing i saw in this tree is that it takes a lot of years to fruit!
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No, everyone does not know what castanea thinks about che because we still have people parroting the nursery talking points of the 1990s. It looks like you haven’t read many of my posts either because you have repeated talking points I have refuted on multiple occasions. I don’t get triggered by people liking fruits I don’t like. I do however wonder about people who believe everything they read on nursery pages about che fruit, the same nurseries that will tell you that their Red Delicious apple trees produce great eating apples, while ignoring the people who have actually grown che fruit who are not selling anything.
When talking about continental climates you specified HOT SUMMERS. The California Central Valley has HOT SUMMERS. Thus your climate point is irrelevant.
There are no countries that love che. NONE. You might think that somewhere in China che fruit would be popular, because it’s a large country with many different cultures and many different climates. But it’s not popular anywhere. In fact the Chinese refer to che as “wholesome”. The Nanjing Botanical Garden refused to grow it because they thought it was a worthless fruit tree. You might think that in some country che would be popular. It’s a nice ornamental and a tough tree so surely some country fell in love with it? Nope.
There are no contextual factors about my dislike of che fruit. I started out like everyone else here with reasonable expectations. None were realized. I have never been sick when I ate it. I didn’t lose any money buying che trees. They were cheap. I like che as an ornamental tree as long as it is grafted and not on its on roots. Nothing wrong with my taste buds. I will repeat again that I liked it when I first ate it, as do most people who try it for the first time. But it’s unbearably bland and insipid and does not inspire a long time devotion. But the flavor is not even the largest problem. The largest problem is the texture. The tough stringy dividers that separate the segments are not a good eating experience. They are the primary reason some people call the fruit disgusting.
The only people I have ever known to genuinely like the fruit reached that conclusion the first year or two they ate the fruit. Five years later they will still tell you they like the fruit but oddly enough they just don’t eat it, not unlike the “journalist” who took a bite of her first che fruit, called it amazing, but couldn’t finish eating that one fruit.
Finally, if you grow almost any fruit for humans - apples, pears, cherries, peaches, plums, strawberries, mulberries, apricots, figs etc, you will find that birds eat the fruit too. Birds will stuff themselves with figs and mulberries, but most birds will not eat che. This is widely reported wherever che is grown. Posted below is a photo of pristine che fruit unmarked by bird predation. In 25 years of growing che, I saw no sign that any bird ever ate a che fruit. Nothing else ate che fruit either except the occasional human trying it for the first time. What do animals know that you don’t know? Why do they avoid this fruit? Why do the Chinese call it “unwholesome”?
Why no signs of bird predation on these fruits?
Dude, chill.
You don’t like che, we get it. There are other people who do, get over it.
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There are lots of people on the forum, including in this thread, who say che is very, very good. It seems like only one person says bad things about the fruit quality, and that’s @castanea who basically insults anyone who says it’s good, or calls them liars. If you go through this thread and tally all the first-person opinions of the fruit, there are more that are positive than negative for sure.
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Meh, to each their own. Nuff said
I’m very interested in that hybrid, but online information seemed sparse when last I searched. ¿Is there any source for cuttings of the male and female clones? ¿And has anyone bothered to sample the fruit? (Interested regardless)
Thank you!
When I was younger, I used to find the sectional membrane on citrus to be… well not fully distasteful, but less than ideal. Is the sectional membrane on Che worse than that? What’s the precise tactile experience on it? Like a fruity gristle? Thorough details, please.
What about on texture? Did you feel the tough membranes?
The cuttings seem cheap and accessible enough. Some folks don’t mind living the experience of sampling the fruit, even with low expectations. I’d like to taste it, even though I don’t expect to like it (and I’ve ripped out distasteful trees before… Ketembilla). The only way to taste most rare fruit here is to grow ‘em, especially if they’re distasteful enough to lack a commercial market.
It occurs to me that I could graft a branch on one of the spur trees. Still very thorny, but I haven’t seen a single sucker, so that could work to contain it, if they’re compatible.
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It’s been quite a while since I was tracking down the hybrid, Bailey’s “Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture” is where I first heard of it. Intermediate size of fruit and purplish tint to thorns? and created in France is about all I recall. No internet yet, I asked anybody into offbeat plants. Finally read an article about a horticulture professor in Columbus Ohio (Kipp - something), who reconstituted the hybrid, gave out the many seedlings. A horticulture teacher in Columbus who switched from ornamental hort. to forestry had several mature male and female clones growing on his ex-wife’s property. I lost his contact information 20 years ago, have since seen a clone is at an arboretum in Columbus, he’s probably the source. I, like you, was interested in hybrids of it to cochinchinensis; lots of potential in that direction! 
I never had any off-putting texture or noticeable membrane’s in my che.
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