My biggest worry is the comparatively short growing season here, zone 6A. Cricket Hill Garden recommends a male for early ripening in colder zones. He says his Che in zone 6 never ripened until he put in a male. I mean I could obviously wait a while and see if mine ever ripen fruit without a male, but I figured I’d get a head start and put in a male now. But I don’t want a bunch of volunteer seedlings sprouting up, so that’s why I was curious what other people were experiencing with pollinated che.
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Back in 1999, my friend Richard Moyer, then living in the Bristol,VA area, penned this missive on Che on the now all-but dead NAFEx email discussion group:
"We have had Che fruit in for 7 years. Putin both a male and female plant. Survived 14 below several winters ago. Blooms after frost; has not frozen out in five or so years (am away from my notes), unlike our mulberry. No observed disease or insect problems. Birds are a problem, have netted the female. Disease and insect resistance similar here to mulberry and fig, which are in same family (Moraceae).
Pollination is the adventure with this plant: The male sets fruit but most of these fall off; a few of them will ripen and be identical to female fruit. Male died to ground two winters ago; the female still set a full crop of seedless fruit. The male grew back last year, bloomed this year and acted like a female by setting the largest crop of ripening fruit yet. (It may be in the process of some type of conversion; time will tell.) Some debate has gone on for the need of a male pollinator. I’m not sure that I had any less fruit without the male two years ago. Our plants are on the far side of the field and hence do not merit close observation; my kids eat most of the fruit with the birds.
Both our plants are grafted onto Osage Orange. Hence, if you know how Osage Orange does on yours or similar land, this should suffice for your site.
A.J. Bullard let a single stem go up to 8-9 ft, and cuts all others off, he
has a nice form as the result. A number of our limbs on our bush are on the ground.
Hidden Springs grafts theirs onto Osage Orange if I recall correctly; they
do not grow seedling trees of Che. If you mean they graft an unnamed
“seedling”, they then are no different from any other nursery, to my
knowledge. Don’t know of anyone who has selected and named superior cultivars from the wild (somewhere in China?) My impression of the one nursery that sells a seedless selection is that this if merely a female. My sample size is too small to determine the value of two for pollination vs one female.
We are at 1800’ zone 6, we rarely get into the 90s; we are on the borderline for enough heat to ripen Che fruit. In a cool summer, defoliation in fall will occur before last of fruit is ripe.
Ripe fruit has a strawberry color, knotty exterior like Osage Orange, tastes a bit like pear and fig to us; sweet but not overly so. Strange in that slightly unripe fruit leaves a metallic taste in my mouth.
In summary, an overlooked minor fruit. Well worth the effort to put in as a carefree, dependable producer in our area. The Blacks at Hidden Springs have made a jam with them. Lee Reich plans to include a chapter on this plant in his second edition of ‘Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention’.
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Are all female che self fruitful?
That is my understanding from all postings about Che. But the females will drop all fruit for a few years making people panic; but apparently after year 3 of fruiting they begin to hold onto it.
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My california dreaming seedless che… is evidently a female.
It produces fruit (seedless) with no other che present.
It produced first fruit in year 3… it colored up some but all dropped before ripening.
In year 4 it set fruit and dropped about half of it… and the other half ripened that fall. It had good sweet watermelon/raspberry flavor.
Nice texture like a strawberry… seedless.
Last fall year 5… it set and ripened all fruit.
I did not get to taste any myself (was on carnivore diet for two months) but my wife and son ate plenty. My son kept describing the taste last year as having the taste of vanilla.
I did not taste that in year 4.
It seems the flavor may have gotten more complex in year 5.
Hopefully I get to taste some this year.
Note… last spring… I grafted my CHE to osage orange… and it grew very well. I planted it in my new orchard last fall and it made 5.5 ft tall and started on scaffold branches.
TNHunter
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Were you able to make a hybrid yet?
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