I was browsing Raintree Nursery today looking at all their varieties because they have their trees back in stock and wondered if they have a cross between a sweet and sour cherry. I read that the romance series is a cross between a tart cherry and Mongolian cherry. Many stated it would be hard for a tart and sweet cherry to cross because of chromosomes. I found there was a tree called Kansas Sweet which actually is supposed to be a cross between a tart and sweet cherry. What are people’s thoughts on this. For a cross between a sweet and sour cherry there not not seem to be any threads on it.
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They call them interspecific sweet and sour cherry hybrids. Breeders have worked on it many years to enlarge the cherry gene pool. Sour cherries can be grown almost everywhere but sweet cherries cannot be grown hardly anywhere. Imagine the flood of sweet cherries on the market once they figure out how to grow them better.
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If it truly does taste like a sweet cherry my questions would be in zones 4 and up what would the reason to plant the romance series if this is a thing and why are people not talking about this? It kind of sounds like the Kansas sweet cherry is a sweet cherry that can function like a tart cherry in making pies. In my experience that is what most people are looking for in the romance series.
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It all depends on a person’s sources of conversation and information. I’m frequently surprised to learn that the characteristic of a plant I thought was little known has actually been under study for decades.
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Montmorency is supposedly a sweet/ sour cross. i grafted 2 z4 hardy sweet scions to mine this spring and both grafts took and so far are growing well. monty is also listed as a pollinator for some sweet cherries.
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I don’t know a lot but know some info and sweet cherries have a diploid genes and tart is a tetraploid. You can use chemicals to increase ploidy level of sweet cherries to make compatible crosses. Sweets are not self fertile until we put the tart self fertile gene in sweet cherries like White Gold. So the mix of tart and sweet genes is quite extensive in both sweet and tart cherries sold today.
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I think they are commonly called Duke cherries. If you are expecting a sweet cherry I suspect you will be disappointed.
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Maybe that is why I heard so many good things about montmorency
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There are some things to know here “Researchers crossed Van and Stella cherry trees to come up with the Lapins cherry” . “The Van cherry tree is widely known to be one of the heaviest fruit producers out of all cherry varieties” they needed self pollinating sweet cherries Lapins cherry - Wikipedia . This type of cherry is unique because it means cross pollination is now possible. There are not many of these cherries. There is more to know Cross polinated sweet and sour cherry trees #231487 - Ask Extension
" Asked March 17, 2015, 2:09 PM EDT
Hi, I just planted a Montmorency cherry tree. I know these are self polinating, but I am trying to figure out if there is a sweet cherry variety (suitable for the front range) that is compatible. I would like the Montmorency to be the pollen source for the sweet cherry (and ideally it goes both ways so my Montmorency has a higher yield). There is good information about universal polinators, but it is hard to pinpoint varieties that bloom at the same time as Montmorency and thrive on the front range. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME! I am a bit new to fruit trees, so hopefully this makes sense.
Boulder County Colorado
Expert Response
Great question. Perhaps you’ve seen this entry from our Fact Sheet:
SOUR AND SWEET CHERRY
"All sour cherries are self-fruitful, such as Montmorency, North Star, Balaton, Meteor, English Morello, Early Richmond, Hansen Bush Cherry and Nanking. Most sweet cherries are self-unfruitful(self-incompatible, SI) and require cross pollination with another variety as the pollen source.
Some varieties, e.g. Bing, Lambert, Royal Ann/Napoleon, are also cross-unfruitful and cannot be depended upon to provide pollen for each other. Index, Lapins, Skeena, Sweetheart, WhiteGold, Sonata, Stella, Symphony, Sunburst, and BlackGold are self-fruitful (SF) sweet cherries that can serve as “universal” pollen sources for many self-unfruitful sweet cherry varieties (Stella does not work for Bing in some areas).
Their use as “universal” pollinators should also take bloom timing into consideration as follows. Early-bloom: SI – Somerset; SF – Lapins and Skeena. Early- to early-mid-bloom: SI – Kristin, Chelan, and Black Republican; SF – Sweetheart and WhiteGold. Mid- to late-mid-bloom: SI – Royalton, Summit, Ranier, Royal Ann / Napoleon, Bing, Burlat, Van, Regina, Lambert, Sam, and Windsor; SF – Sonata, Stella, Symphony, and Sunburst. Late-bloom: SI – Gold and Hudson; SF – BlackGold. Move bees into orchards on the first day of bloom."
It does appear that Montmorency and Black Tartarian will cross, but they don’t reliably bloom at the same time (M is late and BT is early).
http://www.sandybarnursery.com/cherry-pollination-page.htm
Deryn Davidson Replied April 02, 2015, 6:21 PM EDT"
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good to know Clark. thanks. i plan to save some monty seeds and plant them in my nursery bed this fall then graft them over to z4 hardy sweets. once they grow out some ill graft a monty scion for pollination. should make for a more compact sweet cherry tree.
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Mesabi cherry is supposedly cross of Bing (Bing x chance seedling. Duluth, Minn., 1964) but it is considered a tart cherry (Prunus cerasus). I question if sweet and tart cherries can actually cross (without lab manipulation that is). I would guess that it is a tart flavored sweet cherry (rather than a cross). Has there been any genotyping done on any of these Tart x sweet “crosses”?
As a tree I like the Mesabi in my Northern WI orchard (hasn’t fruited yet), is hardy, nice growth pattern, transplants well, survived being run over, and most importantly is one of the few cherry grafts that I have been successful in bench grafting 
.
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@clarkinks Do you happen to have any futher info on " (Stella does not work for Bing in some areas)." I put in a stella as a universal pollinator to pollinate bing. I’m in zone 7a if that makes a differnce for “some areas”.
Thanks
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Montmorency supposedly has sweets in its lineage. must be so as I’ve grafted several sweets to it and they took. think they are Kristen and hayward.
I think the bloom will overlap in zone 7 Pollination – Sweet Cherry | WSU Tree Fruit | Washington State University
Pollination-Chart-Cherry.pdf (263.7 KB)
Stella and bing are not the best pollinators for each other due to somewhat incompatible pollen
“Although Stella is considered a Universal Pollinator, it does not pollinate well with Bing - too genetically similar. Also, Bing/Lambert/Royal
Ann/Kristin cannot cross-pollinate for same reasons.”
The rule of thumb with any fruit tree is they do not cross well with related trees.
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We’ll see what spring brings, but I might need to graft in a Van or Lapins onto a few bing branches. I tried Black Tartarin twice, both times they didnt survive winter. Two seprate nurseries also. IDK…
Thanks for the reply and chart 
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Kansas Sweet aka. Hansen. Not sure if its the same Hansen’s Bush Cherry… if so no need to pay the high prices to get a Kansas Sweet… they are much cheaper as Hansen’s Bush Cherry.
https://www.wheretobuy.davewilson.com/product-information/product/kansas-sweet-cherry
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This thread covered it pretty well, Duke cherries have been around a long time, a triploid by nature. Not cerasus or Hansen, as some nurseries and extension agent’s have claimed. I had ‘Kansas Sweet’ at one time, introduced by Willis Nursery in Ottawa KS as already mentioned. Taste and size closer to sour cherry than sweet, leaves more like sweet cherry, grew much slower than sweet.
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Thats the info i needed to get the possible true history.
Looks like L.E. Cooke has the best description and history of it.
Willis Nursery, Ottawa, Kansas introduced Kansas Sweet as The flavor is somewhat sweet for a Prunus Cerasus or Sour Cherry.
The L. E. Cooke Co brought in the cherry in 1960 and put into production in 1965. The tree is a small growing pie cherry which sets heavily even in the mild areas of Southern California.
The selection is not considered a sweet cherry but is sweeter than all other pie cherries, self fertile, and produces in a broad range of climates from the cold Midwest to the mild winter areas. The fruit is large for a pie cherry, has red skin and flesh making it colorful.
Nothing really on the social medias, or videos on Youtube… mostly only references when talking about pollination on most groups.
This is a review of someone that planted a tree and what happened… he describes the taste as similar to a fresh Bing that he picked in a Michigan orchard. Author is Editor in Chief of Grit… so likely a trustworthy review.
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Most of these sweet x sour cherry hybrids are available in Europe such as Nochka and Xenia.