To me they tasted like a giant Rainier cherry and had the same texture. I’ve been doing research on the Pluerry varieties that are available but it seems like they are predominantly plum in flavor and texture with a lot of people on this forum saying they don’t get any notes of cherry from theirs.
That research let me to a variety called Very Cherry Plum which seems like it is the variety sold in grocery stores and is only for commercial growers.
I’d love to grow something similar and since I already have plenty of pluots and plums and no cherries I’d like to find something more cherry forward.
Anyone have any suggestions on anything that sounds like what I am looking for?
You can always grow the seeds and see what they produce. Typically plum seedlings are quite similar to the rootstock but being from a commercial grower, these were probably open pollinated so they might be crossed with another variety. Even so they could be even better and worth trying if you liked them.
If you grow out the seedling, you can graft its scions to a mature plum or peach tree to get quick results rather than waiting for the seedling to produce.
Dennis
Kent, wa
I guess growing them from seed is a clear winner as far as this forum goes. I always try to find the truth the best that i can before i post things. I am not in it for the likes at all…but if someone were to read this thread to find the information for themselves at a later date they would conclude that growing them for seed is a 4X better answer than an already discussed comparison.
I mention that Sweet Treet is similar to Very Cherry… 1 like. Even though it has been discussed before by a respectable forum member.
Someone mentions to plant the seeds so that they will be similar to the rootstock and gets 4 times the likes.
Im not going to post all the references but it is grown in the deep south and also Alaska. Also if you read more the rootstock itself is good for dwarfing a peach… so would be super interesting if someone would graft some peaches to a cherry plum tree i think.
My reading says that it grows more as a bush than a tree… and that the fruit tastes like black cherry.
So i reckon its very cold hardy yet very heat tolerant… and also seems to grow true to seed?
“Verry Cherry Plum” is a marketing name for ‘Sweet Pixie’. The patent is set to expire May 15, 2031. After that time, perhaps it will become more available.
It is claimed to be the following hybrid: (Prunus salicina × Prunus avium) × Prunus avium
This means that it was the result of an Asian plum pollinated by a sweet cherry, the offspring of which was again pollinated by a sweet cherry to produce ‘Sweet Pixie.’ If the hybrid formula were accurate (it very well may not be), then ‘Sweet Pixie’ would be around 75% sweet cherry DNA and only about 25% plum DNA. I doubt the accuracy of the recorded hybrid formula for a couple reasons. First, these two species are so difficult to cross that the resulting offspring would very likely not even be fertile without chromosome doubling (which is not claimed to have been done). That would make the back cross to sweet cherry again even that much harder. Add to this that the photo published in the patent showing a twig with leaves looks morphologically like an Asian plum and not like sweet cherry. That shouldn’t be the case if it’s DNA is mostly sweet cherry.
I suspect the “cherry” flavor in purported plum x cherry crosses is generally the result of selective breeding for flavor and not the result of successful hybridization.
I think there is a reasonable chance that you are right that some of these hybrids are just selection of plums. It would be more interesting if a breeder used Prunus avium as the seed parent because that would remove the doubt if cherry is actually in the genetics. All of the hybrids that I have seen seem to use plum as the seed parent which does raise the question on the actual pollen parent. Genetic analysis on the existing hybrids would be interesting because it might provide insights into if they are actual hybrids.
In researching other (non-fruit tree) species which have been used to attempt very difficult hybrid crosses, I have read there are sometimes cases where a random gene or two from the pollen parent is retained in the offspring even though the pollen is overall rejected and the offspring are essentially fully the seed parent species. I do wonder if there’s a chance that is happening with these purported plum x cherry hybrids.
‘Hiawatha’ was developed from Prunus besseyi (with a little bit of Prunus salicina) and although the common name for that species is “sand cherry,” it’s not the species people are typically referring to when they say “cherry.”
P. besseyi is essentially just a shrubby, small fruited plum that is very receptive to hybridizing with other plum species.
