I had a Danube cherry growing near the south side of my house in Iowa. When it grew past the roofline and spread too close to the house, I trimmed it down by 1/3. Best thing I ever did. It increased production X3 or 4. I was very sad when borers or something got it and I had to cut it down.
Now I have 2 Balaton in the rear yard, that started producing until raccoons climbed them while the trees were still small, and broke off the main branch on one and side branches on the other. They have not produced in the 3 years after.
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That’s a really interesting effect on the Danube, Jdeppe. I wish I would have tried that when I had one. I could never get much production out of mine.
John S
PDX OR
Wanted to update this topic with my latest experience.
So I originally planted one Danube and one Jubileum cherry trees, both on Mazzard roots, in 2009.
The Danube has never produced much, but never grew really big either. I’d say the Danube produced about 30 lbs. of cherries this year. Normally it produces about 20 lbs. It is slowly getting bigger though.
The Jubileum is a really huge tree. I’ve kept it barely in picking height, and I’m a fairly tall guy 6’2". This year was a bit out of my reach, so I pruned it down a couple feet, while the cherries were picked off the prunings.
The Jubileum tree generally produces 50 to 60 lbs. I think about 60 lbs. last year. But this year it produced a whopping 125 lbs. This is not an estimation. I sold those cherries, so this is based on actual weight harvested. Next year will be back to somewhat lower yields, as the tree was pruned fairly heavy and a lot of productive growth removed.
Still my point is that the cherry tree is productive, if one is willing to wait long enough, and it’s grown on Mazzard roots. I’m not sure how productive the tree would be if grown on Mahleb, since Mahleb is more dwarfing.
Also, it may help pollination, to have the Danube tree.
The cherries on both the Danube and Jubileum are fresh eating quality if left on the tree to get dark.
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i have lutowka rose polish sour cherry. it set about 20 fruit for the 1st time. supposed to be a good sized cherry around 16 brix.
I know this is a late reply, but maybe keep an eye out for other cherry trees in your locale that are blooming the same time yours is. Then maybe you could do some door knocking and find out what variety they have. If the person you are talking too has a decent size tree, then maybe you could also sweet talk them into to nipping a shoot off with some flowers. Swipe it around your trees flowers a bit and then set it in a vase of sorts in/amongst your tree to let the pollinators do some work for you. Then sit back and see if you got any pollination.
Or maybe bring a feather duster and dust their tree and then rush home and dust yours. Just a thought.
This is really interesting information, Olpea. I wonder if these two take to your climate more than to mine. I would only get say, 4 cherries on a large semi-dwarf Jubileum, and the squirrels would eat the cherries when red and unripe. They ripen to a kind of purple. Montmorency was always loaded. Danube never had many cherries either. Balaton has always been a kind of underperformer in terms of production, but way more than the other two. I have a standard suburban yard and I just couldn’t justify a plateau of extremely underperforming trees when I have limited space and Monty is such a champion.
John S
PDX OR
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Just want to say thanks for this thread! I also have a very limited city lot and have been trying to find some good cherry to add to my CJ tree that would produce enough to justify allocating a sunny spot. I almost bought Danube until I went over all the threads here saying that it doesn’t produce much.
Right now I am considering Black Tartarian and Bing, which people say tastes much better off the tree. I plan to find some farm to try them off the tree this summer. I’ve also been heavily considering Montmorency to the point that I purchased one but ended up diving it away just because this cherry is super abundant when in season and they sell it everywhere.
Alternatively I may give up on the cherry idea and just go with plums. For now waiting a bit to see how the 4 plums I planted this season perform. So far they are putting up some impressive growth without too much disease.
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That’s a shame John. The cherries off of Danube and Jubileum are really tasty when they get dead ripe. Perhaps the production is related to climate.
I will say it took a long time before the trees produced much of anything. They would bloom a bunch, but really not set much fruit. They probably had to get something like 8 years old before the largest tree would even give 20 lbs.
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