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.
I hate to ācount my chickens before they hatchā, 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. Iāve lost several cherries to this same problemā¦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. Iāve 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 canāt imagine anything else that would do that.???
Anyway, I do like my BT and its been far more successful than the other sweet cherries Iāve triedā¦and there have been MANY.
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Check for ants this damage was caused by bermuda wood ants which love cherry rootstocks. This is a 25 year old cherry.
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.
Iāve 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 Iāve 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. Iāve grown Lapins, Emperor Francis, Sweetheart, Black Gold to name a few. Iāve also grown sours such as Montmorency. Iāve 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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I honestly hope I havenāt 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 isnāt suppossed to work out at all. To be clear, Iāve never gotten the volume of fruit off the BT that I have from my sour cherries. Iāve 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. Iāve followed his (your) efforts and frustration closely over the years. So I donāt want to suggest Iāve 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 Iāve 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 hasnāt been that high AND on the fact that iāve gone through a LOT of other sweet cherries that didnāt work out.
You may have seen my posts on another thread about the problems Iāve had with apricot trees dying and how I think its from V Wilt. Well, my sweet cherries are in that same area and Iāve 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 canāt 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, Iād say Iāve failed overall. In fact, if you took away my one good BT tree, Iāve had downright awful luck with sweet cherries. I fear I have overstated my success because Iāve always viewed it in the light of āSweet cherries cannot be grown in TNā so even moderate success felt really good and Iāve 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 BTās will do well here. Iāll keep you posted on that. But so far Iāve been impressed with my second BT-it seems to be doing as well as my first.
Hope this post hasnāt disappointed you too much or made you feel like Iāve 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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Iām 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 itās 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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Iāve 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 wasnāt sure it would survive and really didnāt care if it did. I did that to all my sweet cherries last year. Iām willing to spray and net a small sweet cherry tree for when we have good years, but donāt 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. Weāll see what happens. Iām 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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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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I just read this whole article, and thereās 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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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 wonāt 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.
I think your best choice would be WhiteGold. It blooms at about the same time and is compatible when comes to pollen. Itās also self-fertile and self-fertile cultivars are great pollinators.
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@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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Good morning,
I just read two reports: Jon Clementās: āLocal cherries ripe and ready for the tableā (Massachusetts Amherst, Agricultural Ext. ) regarding sweet cherries for the North East and another from, Kleinās Growing Cherries in Geneva NY. (Cornell).
Like other New Englanders, I like the challenge.
I am trying to decide which variety of Cherries to try again. Maybe a better suited variety like another Black Tartan.
I lost two young cherry trees this summer and it was heartbreaking to me. (Utah Giant and Rainer) I need a safer variety to plant next spring. Can you kindly recommend a variety?
I like to purchase my fruit trees through Dave Wilson Nursery on dwarf stock and I keep them at 3-4 feet tall. They are HUGE when they arrive. At least 3 years old. It is instant gratification. I also enjoy how beautiful these trees are, I enjoy pruning and shaping.
Long sad story:
I received the Rainer and Utah Giant cherry trees in December 2020 and 2019. (NEWROOT1 ). They leafed out beautifully and I was so proud. Then the aphids came. I tried every organic method, lacewings, lady bugs, squishing themā¦ finally Bonide dead bug spray. One cherry tree down (Rainer). Next, canker showed up on three treesā¦ one more cherry tree down (Utah Giant). Still evaluating the other three: Black Gold, another Utah Giant and a combo multi bud that gave me fruit (grafts: Black Tartarian,Bing,Van,Lapins)
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Now, I am now researching safer varieties for sweet cherries in the North East.
My tiny garden is in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is mild weather in my opinion, a longer growing season by about 3 weeks than western Massachusetts. Earlier springs and much longer beautiful fall weather. The soil is very fertile, I had Mass Ag test it recently.
Can you kindly recommend a variety of sweet cherry tree that might survive the challenges I face?
Thank you, Colleen
Jon Clements did some youtube reports on his cherry testing, hereās an example video. I think you can visit his test orchard next year, they have students sell fruit at a farm stand or something
I think his advice was generally āit wonāt be profitable hereā but he shows a few varieties. rainier, skeena, benton, regina, all on g3 or g5. heās lost trees to canker here and there
in general Iād look at gisela 3, 5 or 12 over newroot (not g6, itās canker susceptible) just because theyāve had some testing for canker (raintree carries g3 and g5). they arenāt gold standard for canker, but newroot, from what Iāve seen, hasnāt had comparative testing for it so it may be susceptible. newroot may be a great rootstock but dwn hasnāt subjected it to the kind of comparative testing that gisela got when it arrived and the newer MSU roostocks (clare, cass, etc.) are getting now, so I donāt know what to think about it
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@Colleen7
Although your area is warmer, but humidity, not cold hardiness is still a challenging issue for cherry growers in the east.
If they survive canker and any soil-borne diseases, brown rot, cracking (rain), birds, etc. are waiting for them.
I would choose Gisela 5 for rootstock and White Gold for a variety. I like WG more than BG.
I loved this video! It gives me hope.