Eastern Sweet Cherries

General Fruit Growing
#13

If your not in an area that grows sweet cherries commercially sweet cherries are tough. Are you prepared to spray for brown rot? Are you prepared to put up scare tape or net your trees? If not your probably better off planting something else.

Under Eastern Conditions here are some cultivars you might try.

Blackgold self-fertile, very late bloomer which is good for late frosts but blooms too late to pollinate many other sweet cherries, crack resistant

Whitegold self-fertile, yellow with red blush, crack resistant

Black Tartarian great flavor, heirloom, brown rot resistant, once was commercially grown in New York when trees weren’t sprayed (1800s)

Other sweet cherries for Eastern conditions

Ebony Pearl, Burgundy Pearl- both are new and developed in the East

Emperor Francis- older yellow cherry

Also note most cherries are relatively soft. If you demand crisp,super firm cherries like Bing you are probably going to be disappointed.

Rootstocks

Semi-dwarf

Kymsk 5 and Gisela 12 are more resistant to canker than Gisela 6

Dwarf

Gisela 5

Full size

mazzard- default sweet cherry rootstock, large tree and slow to come in production, large tree means hard to net

For cherries it’s tough finding a cultivar on the rootstock you want.

For cultivars on Gisela 5 the only source is Raintree Nursery. For trees on Krymsk 5- Schlabach’s nursery and Trees of Antiquity. Cummins nursery sometimes carries trees on the Gisela series. I have seen them offer trees on Gisela 6 and 12. Trees on mazzard are easier to find.

I have Blackgold on Gisela 12. It bloomed the first year (I picked the blooms off). It grew little the first year but I bought a small caliper tree. The 2nd year decent growth. The 3rd year good growth. In the 3rd year, I got about 2 dozen cherries.

Mroot

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#14

Like many, I love sweet cherries, sweet and firm like Bing or Rainier.

Figure out those two varieties don’t do well in the east coast so I’ve settled for Black Gold and Vandalay, both on Gisela 5.

Vandalay was removed after 4 years, cracked and rotted badly. Black Gold is a bit better but it is Not crack resistant, not in my yard.

Black Gold tastes fine but texture is not firm. It has brown rot after 5 years and will all rot if not spray. I keep BG because it is extremely productive and very cold hardy. It has given me lot of cherries every year. It is self fertile. You only need one tree which what I have. My tree is 8 years now.

Gisela 5 is a very good dwarf rootstock for my small back yard. I pruned it to an umbrella shape. It is only 5 ft tall so it is easy to cover with net. No netting = no fruit.

I grow fruit trees so I can have fruit that taste much better than store-bought fruit. For me, this is not true for cherries in the east coast. I still prefer Bing and Rainier over BG any day of the week.

@thecityman loves his Black Tartarian. My neighbor grow them but they never fruit for her. After 6 years, she cut all three trees down.

#15

Thank you for sharing the varieties that should work on Eastern conditions. What does your spray program look like for brown rot - fungicides, frequency, when to start? Do you net your trees or use scare tape?

As far as rootstock goes I have very heavy red clay based soil, do you still recommend the same rootstock? How big did your Blackgold on Gisela 12 get? Thanks for the info - Spud.

#16

Why don’t Rainier or Bing do well on the east coast? What does your spray program look like? Thanks - Spud

#17

I have no idea about eastern sweet cherries but i cannot say enough good things about every gisela rootstock i have tried, to me they have no negative attributes they are very precocious and easy to manage trees which have been very cold hardy, drought tolerant, well anchored in clay. Bings are the best cherry hands down in my opinion but do not take to the snap frosts very well compared to a few other more cold tolerant sweet cherries.

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#18

Spud,
This was an old thread from Gardenweb but the info is still relevant. Cherries, particularly sweet cherries like Bing and Rainier do not do well in warm, humid climate like your east coast zone. Rainier is not cold hardy enough for my colder east coast zone.

Too much issues to make growing sweet cherries in the east coast worth it for many people. Some cherry issues can start early like leaf spot and canker. Others like cracking or birds show up when trees bear fruit. Brown rot is a couple of years after fruit bearing.

Many people along the east coast have tried to grow sweet cherries with limited success and a lot of work. So far, people report their success with other varieties, not names Bing and cherries, like Black Gold, White Gold, Regina, Black Tartarian. There are some newer varieties but I have not seen many reports from people yet.

I hope one day, new sweet cherry varieties that are crack resistant and disease resistant suitable for east coast will be developed.

#19

I mainly have tart cherries and apples so my experience with sweet cherries is limited.

For spraying this year- sweet cherry

Captan (fungicide) in pH adjusted water (needs to be acidic) until petal fall

After petal fall-Captan mixed with Triazicide (insecticide)

I plan to do 1-2 sprays before petal fall and 2-4 after petal fall. It’s critical to have fungicide on the cherries when they are starting to ripen or brown rot will get them. Kinda like peaches in that respect.

I use scare tape on tarts and my sweet but timing is critical. You want to put it on just as the cherries start to ripen. Too early and the birds get used to it and ignore it. Too late and the birds are already eating cherries. Even with the tape I have losses- a net would be much better. For netting you need a shorter tree something to keep in mind.

My Blackgold is only 3 years old and about 6 feet tall. I expect if you don’t do size control pruning it will be in the 12-15ft range when mature compared Gisela 5 8-10ft and mazard 20-25ft. I plan on keeping it at less than 10 feet with pruning.

I have heavy soil. It behaves like clay soil. When it’s really dry it cracks. When you dig a hole in really wet soil it forms a glaze on the side of a hole. The soil is actually silt loam and as you dig deeper it turns into slity clay loam. I have older mature tart cherries on Mazzard and Gisela 5 and they do pretty well. Mazzard, Gisela and Krymsk should all do pretty well on clay soil.

Mroot

#20

Rain is an issue for me, but besides that they grow fine here. I don’t grow them though. I have a White Gold tree with grafts of Emperor Francis and Utah Giant. Utah Giant is a very firm cherry and splits with rain, but does not rot, still very good eating. It is very sweet. Grows well here.

Here is mine from 2018. I use it on all stone fruit
2018 03 17 Sprayed Kocide copper 2tbsp/gallon with Nu Film 17 sticker.
2018 04 22 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 4 sprays left (Nu Film is used in all applications)
2018 05 18 Infuse (2tbs) 3 sprays left, and Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 2 sprays left
2018 05 24 first PC strikes (plum curculio beetle)
2018 05 24 Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs) extra for trees because of bad PC. need to find something else.
2018 05 29 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 3 sprays left
2018 06 06 Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 1 spray left.
2018 06 14 Infuse (2tbs) 2 sprays left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)
2018 06 28 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 2 sprays left
2018 07 15 Infuse (2tbs) 1 spray left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)

For dormant protection
2018 11 23 Lime-sulfur with oil
Apply 4 fl. oz. lime-sulfur plus 1 1/4 fl
. oz. dormant spray oil per gallon of water.

It works for me really well. The fungicide in Fruit Tree Spray attack brown rot by attacking a different mechanism (mode of action) than Infuse does. So I’m attacking brown rot from 2 different fronts. I also feel the insecticides do well against PC which here is rather light.
All my fruit comes out flawless, here are nectarines

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#21

Sweet cherries do fine in a good location here in S Wisconsin but the rain, birds ruin or eat most of the fruit if not protected well. Cherries under a tunnel would probably work great.

#22

I hate to “count my chickens before they hatch”, but my Black Tartarian appears to be on track for its best crop EVER! Sadly, a couple of my other cherries seem to be hit by what Im fairly sure is some kind of wilting disease. I’ve lost several cherries to this same problem…they start to leaf out in spring and seem healthy as can be, then suddenly all the newly emerged leaves just wilt and the whole tree dies. I’ve also lost a couple appricots to this exact same process. It it is a wilting disease, myunderstanding is that I have almost no hope of getting it out of that area of my orchard. This always happens in the same area, too, which is another reason I suspect wilt. And its well drained there so I can’t imagine anything else that would do that.???

Anyway, I do like my BT and its been far more successful than the other sweet cherries I’ve tried…and there have been MANY.

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#23

Check for ants this damage was caused by bermuda wood ants which love cherry rootstocks. This is a 25 year old cherry.

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#24

Could you do an update on your sweet cherries and the rest of your orchard? Based on your experiences I planted a Black Tartarian and a Late Duke last week . Both are on krymsk 5. I am in Illinois which is an area not recommended for sweet cherries just like your location. I have found your posts very inspiring and hope to hear more about how your doing. I also have a Blackgold on Gisela 12. It produced a few cherries last year and should give me a few more this year.

#25

I’ve probably mentioned this before but one of the things that got me into fruit growing was my love for sweet cherries. My kids love them as well. I ended up planting a few sweet cherry trees along with several other types of fruit. Going into my 6th year I can tell you the cherries have pretty much been my biggest regret. There is a reason why there are no commercial cherry orchards around me and the predominant fruits to grow are apples, peaches, and blueberries. While I’ve harvested minimal amounts of cherries over the 6 year period, not a single one has been as good as a firm Bing style cherry from the supermarket. I’ve grown Lapins, Emperor Francis, Sweetheart, Black Gold to name a few. I’ve also grown sours such as Montmorency. I’ve gotten better production from Juliet and Carmine Jewell bush cherries. When my sweet cherry trees eventually die off I will fill there spot with something other than a cherry.

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#26

I honestly hope I haven’t given you TOO MUCH hope in terms of sweet cherries. To be clear, for all the success I have had with my one Black Tartarian tree, I have gone through an awfully lot of other sweet cherries that did NOT work out. And even my BT has been successful in the light of a tree that isn’t suppossed to work out at all. To be clear, I’ve never gotten the volume of fruit off the BT that I have from my sour cherries. I’ve gotten good harvests, but not great ones.

I absolutely remember that @speedster1 and I got into fruit growing at roughly the same time, give a year or two, and that you (Dave) really, REALLY wanted sweet cherries. I’ve followed his (your) efforts and frustration closely over the years. So I don’t want to suggest I’ve done a great deal better myself. I have one tree (a BT) that HAS been an extremely healthy tree- it always looks wonderful and strong and healthy. And I’ve gotten decent yields from it over the years- especially last year. And make no mistake, the cherries I do get are absolutely incredible!!! Sweet, crunchy, just incredible. But after reading both of your posts (Mroot and Dave) i feel like I may have bragged too much about the health of that one tree and not focused enough on the fact that the yield hasn’t been that high AND on the fact that i’ve gone through a LOT of other sweet cherries that didn’t work out.

You may have seen my posts on another thread about the problems I’ve had with apricot trees dying and how I think its from V Wilt. Well, my sweet cherries are in that same area and I’ve lost quite a few of those trees in the exact same way over the years. I think the same V wilt fungus has killed them too, but I can’t be sure.

In short, I just want both of you and anyone else who sees this in the future to know that overall I would not say I have been successful with sweet cherries- not at all. In fact, I’d say I’ve failed overall. In fact, if you took away my one good BT tree, I’ve had downright awful luck with sweet cherries. I fear I have overstated my success because I’ve always viewed it in the light of “Sweet cherries cannot be grown in TN” so even moderate success felt really good and I’ve likely focused on it in that context.

BTW, I do have a second Black Tartarian tree that is on its second (perhaps 3rd- Id have to look it up) year this year. I did that mostly to see whether my first BT was just a fluke and had some special characteristics that make it do so well here, or if all BT’s will do well here. I’ll keep you posted on that. But so far I’ve been impressed with my second BT-it seems to be doing as well as my first.

Hope this post hasn’t disappointed you too much or made you feel like I’ve misled you in the past- I certainly didnt mean to, and my BT has been a healthy, strong, outstanding tree for years. Its also given me quite a few cherries- just not on par with sour cherry yields.

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#27

I’m in Michigan and we produce some sweet cherries here commercially. I have had some problems, but not that many. I get good crops every year. Sometimes it’s best to stick what grows best in your area. Here controlling water is all important for the firm cultivars.
I grow one very firm cultivar, Utah Giant. I like it because cracks heal well, so even cracked cherries are awesome. The Utah Giant is to me even sweeter than Bing. I have not had that many to form a solid opinion yet. I only have a few grafts of it so far. I harvested more scion to spread and convert more of my tree over to Utah Giant. I think it is sweeter than Bing, but bing has a nice rich flavor. Anyway what BT is to Kevin UG is to me. Love that I can grow a cherry that competes with commercial varieties. .

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#28

I’ve had a few crops from my Lapins. The first two years the cherries were perfect and rivaled good super market Bings, just a tad bit softer. The next year they cracked horribly and were barely recognizable as a cherry. Also tasted very bland. The cherries were so bad, I overreacted and pruned the tree so hard that I wasn’t sure it would survive and really didn’t care if it did. I did that to all my sweet cherries last year. I’m willing to spray and net a small sweet cherry tree for when we have good years, but don’t think it is worth struggling with a large tree and having them all crack. The trees I pruned hard were Black Gold, White Gold, Lapins and Stella. They all came back o.k. this year. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to try to keep them really small, erring on the side of NO caution. I also have a young Black Tartarian plus a few sweet cherries in containers.

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#29

Well I knew sweet cherries are risky in Illinois. But if your in a risky area you need to plant cherries that have a higher probability of success like Black Tartarian, Whitegold, Blackgold, etc.

I also have interest in Duke cherries which are tart/sweet hybrids which I think have some promise for people like me which live in non-friendly sweet cherry areas. I have even thought about breeding Duke cherries since few are available and I think there is still room for improvement for Duke cherries. Here are some links to related threads.

Duke cherries
Duke cherries experiences? sources for trees/scionwood?

Breeding cherries
Breeding cherries

Dwarfing cherry rootstock

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#30

I just read this whole article, and there’s a lot of information to take in all at once, so to recap, If I have a black York cherry, what are the available cherry trees that pollinate well with this variety? and I live in Massachusetts, by the way. Thanks

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#31

With sweet cherries you need two things for successful pollination. First, the bloom times of both trees need to overlap and second the pollen must be compatible. Certain cherries are incompatible with others and won’t produce fruit. Here is a chart that shows bloom times and compatibility. There are a number of cherries that would work as shown by the chart.

https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/_ccLib/attachments/about/GOWeb-Pollination-Swt+Cherry(2013)(Landscape).pdf

I think your best choice would be WhiteGold. It blooms at about the same time and is compatible when comes to pollen. It’s also self-fertile and self-fertile cultivars are great pollinators.

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#32

@clarkinks, et al,
Have anyone on the east esp., the east coast successfulky grow Black Pearl or any in the Pearl series.

This GoodFruit article said Black Pearl is a Cornell release aimed at the west coast growers. What about us?

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