I am very interested in sweet cherry trees and I live in Northwest New Jersey. I’m wondering what varieties do good in my area. A local nursery has a variety called Black York and I am interested in it and was wondering if anyone knew any good pollinators for it.
Any of them will pollinate each other. I have Black York. It is Bing that has been modified to grow and crop well on the east coast.
For Black York, I would suggest White Gold as a pollinator. It’s self-fertile, a good pollinator of other cherries and is one of the better choices for Eastern states. A good alternate is Black Gold which is also self fertile.
Do you know anything about growing fruit or cherries in general? Cherries require more maintenance than say apples. In most cases you will have to spray to control brown rot and insects. I would suggest you look at this thread on growing cherries in Eastern conditions where we have summer rainfall and humid conditions.
For sweet cherries to pollinate you need two things- the pollen to be compatible and the bloom times of both trees to overlap. Here is a chart that shows bloom times and pollen compatibilty.
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You’re fortunate to have a local nursery selling Black York trees. They are somewhat hard to find online. The nursery probably has them on a root stock suited for your area as well. There are reports that Black York might have some resistance to bacterial canker, which helps on the east coast.
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@mroot I have a decent knowledge on growing fruits and last summer I planted a sour cherry in my backyard since I couldn’t find any sweet cherries at that time. Thank you for the article on the eastern sweet cherries I found it very helpful and the pollination chart will be very helpful come this spring. Do you think a Stella cherry would be a good pollinator for the black York?
@ztom I can tell that they are very rare to find. I think that I will go with this variety in the spring and if you would like I could give you some links to where I found people selling them online.
I am not very familiar with the Stella sweet cherry. I would try to research it online and see what you find as far as bloom time and pollen compatibility.
You also want to look at resistance to brown rot and cherry cracking as well as canker. Many of the Western cherries fail badly in these areas when grown on the East coast. I still think White Gold is your best bet and it’s widely available. Others that I think would work are on my post in the Eastern cherry thread I linked in my post above.
It is very easy to be seduced by seller descriptions of sweet cherries that have wonderful taste and texture (well at least the sellers claim this) but really won’t perform well in Eastern conditions. If you 're planting one or two trees I think you want pick trees well suited to your local growing conditions. On the other hand if you’re planting four or more trees I think it is worthwhile to plant one or two high risk trees that may end up being total flops or unlikely gems.
Just wonder if any or all folks here are in NJ. It is not easy to grow apricot and sweet cherries here in NJ…
I am in the west, just south of I-78. But I have never tried cherries or apricots.
To me, apricot and sweet cherry are the most challenging fruit trees to grow here in NJ. Most of the years, frost kill the blossom easily. Nothing we can do about this.
Then by later summer, beetles really like to suck the juice of those trees. You’ll have to spray the entire trees to prevent beetles.
If your main problem is blossom frost kill I would plant the Black Gold sweet cherry. It blooms very late. In some years it actually blooms with my tart cherries- it’s that late. If you look at the link above on bloom times you will see other cherries that bloom late Gold and Regina for example.
@mroot I was looking at the white gold cherry and I found at that it is actually a cross between a Stella and a Emperor Francis. However I have not been able to find any info about if Stellas are as resistant as the White gold are so I am going to take your advice and try to find a white gold this upcoming spring.
@Zack328,
I had 4 cherries trees, 3 sweet - Black Gold, Vandalay, Black Star and one sour - Danube when I started almost 10 years ago.
Only Black Gold is still standing.
Vandalay about every fruit cracked every year. Gone.
Danube - nice fruit, not sour but extremely stingy re. Fruit set. Hundreds of flower, 10-20 cherries. Gone.
Black Star, grew well one year and suffered a sudden death the 2nd year.
I am in central MA, humid east coast. As people mentioned above, there are several reasons why cherry esp. sweet kind are not widely grown here. In my area, growing cherries with no spray is a pipe dream.
Black Gold is very productive, quite cold hardy but I don’t like its somewhat soft texture. When compared to White Gold, White Gold is a tad firmer. I have WG and several other varieties grafted on my BG.
Here is an article from UMass about the Pearl series. They don’t hold up well in our wet weather.
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Challenge with cherries is rain. Rain creates cracking of the cherries. Just fine here in Colorado where I live because we are so dry. If anything our frost is more concerning. The frost is why sweet cherries are mainly grown on the side of the state more towards Kansas. There are 3 things you want to look at with cherries and that is chill hours, crack resistance and hardiness in my experience.
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On the east coast your primary problem will most likely be brown rot. As others stated you will be spraying several times if you want to see a crop. All other issues are minor in comparison. White Gold is another good east coast cherry.
Robert,
How do you like Black York?
In my experience, cracking and brown rot are the two major issues of growing sweet cherries in my area and the east coast, in general. Rain often comes right around cherry ripening time. That’s why breeders work hard to create crack-resistant varieties.
If cracking does not ruin your yields, brown rot will after 3-4 years of getting fruit. I can protect against birds and other vermints or even cracking (with covering). Can’t protect against brown rot without spraying synthetic fungicide. Organic fungicide is not working here.
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Brown rot is king here. If you do not spray there will never be a crop. Cracking and other problems have really been by the year. Organic spray is a myth.
Black York is more or less a Bing. I would not rate it as one of my favorites. Rainier is at the top for me. Black York, White and Black Gold, and a couple others from the Cornell breeding program are the best for the east coast though. Think it’s cornell anyway. They have all been bred for east coast conditions and to resist cracking. Seems like they should be breeding brown rot resistance. That would make a fortune.
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I am impressed Rainier does well for you.