We once again had alot of issues with getting bees in the flowers. We got some set, but far less than we should have.
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OMG…I am soooo jealous! I hope to someday have some cherries. Great job!
I won’t try to convince you it took no effort. This tree was planted midsummer and promptly lost 75% of its leaves. A shade cover and morning mistings kept it alive through the summer. Now that it’s established I expect it will be slightly less effort.
Just a quick update on this thread from last year: we’ve had a very weird winter, even for us. We basically had an extra fall and started winter a couple weeks ago (after a lot of trees had bloomed). Last year, Royal Lee started first and was done before Minnie Royal got going. This year is the opposite as MR is ahead of RL. Fortunately, the trees are much more in sync this year than last. Cherries? We’ll see. Added some mason bees to the yard this year, so you never know.
Minnie Royal
Royal Lee (hard to see the color in the blooms, but a lot are coming – recent cool weather seems to have slowed them down)
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Identical results for me this year. Trees have been blooming sporadically since December. A handful of cherries are already set. But the warm Dec and Jan kinda messed up the mass bloom that you’d typically need for a good crop.
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You may want to graft onto your trees other low chill varieties such as Stella and Brooks. Stella requires around 400 chill hours, my six year old Stella tree produces well every year. It has eight other varieties grafted to it. I got Brooks from a scion exchange last year, three scions were grafted and are all doing well. Brooks was developed in the 1980’s by UC Davis as a lower chill variety for southern central valley cherry growers in California. Another variety that just came out last year is Royal Crimson from Dave Wilson Nursery. My whip has already begun to leaf out already, no blossoms. The other varieties are still dormant, some varieties, Black Tartarian and Brooks are starting to swell and will soon blossom possibly next week. We should have about 1200 chill hours and no frost damage, so far, by blossom time up here in Northern Santa Clara Valley. Last year chill hours were around 800. Cherry production was good.
Same here. 
My Royal Crimson looks like it will have one branch bloom this year, but still looks like it’s 2-3 weeks away. Hopefully it will sync better in future years, but maybe it will overlap with my two other cherries, Lapins and Royal Rainier. Thanks for the suggestion on Stella and Brooks. I’m not likely to add any more Cherry trees, but will look for scion wood to graft.
At the suggestion of my local nurseryman, I did give the cherries a quick shot of diluted sugar (Karo corn syrup) with a sticker on the open flowers. Bees were pretty active on Minnie Royal this weekend, less so on Royal Lee. MR was about 70% open flowers and RL about 20%. Hopefully some cross pollination there, but we’ll see. At least there is hope!
Sounds like a good idea
Last year I had loaded MR and RL with cherries that were all blown away by Santa Ana winds in late April 2017. Knocked away >95% of my cherries and fruitlets on pluerries, cherry plums, pluots, etc. I was kicking myself because the cherries looked ripe and I had deliberately waited because I thought they’d be more ready in May. I salvaged a total of 6 MR/RL cherries from the ground, but they were delicious.
I have 2 royal crimson trees but not convinced. I’ve had them since last spring and both look like they got mainly vegetative growth.
As an aside, I’ve had no issues with pollination despite the synchronicity issues. I think some other stone fruit is managing to assist in pollination. Same happens with my Asian pears - they’re not flowering at the same time yet I get a decent fruit set all the same.
Khaled
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Here’s my 2019 update on Orange County low chill cherry pollination. It’s been a consistently chilly winter with few extremes. Pollination overlap has been excellent this year. If it’s not this year, it ain’t gonna happen!
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Just wanted to add a little report of my low chill sweet cherries in Phoenix, AZ.
We got official fruit count of 21 cherries on Minnie Royal, and 5 cherries on Royal Lee.
Planted bare-root January of 2015. Facing South South West gets full sun from sunrise through 3pm. The low chill pair is planted 7 ft away from each other.
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@epicyardfarm, Do you have better luck with the patterned organza bags than a solid pattern?
I’ve tried solid black, red, and yellow and they all seem helpful as they delay when critters figure out there is something tasty inside the bag. Once they do though, they’ll keep going after the bags.
Hah, lavender and rosemary were supposed to bring bees to my avocados (or so I thought). Last spring I was watching the bees in my avocado patch landing on the lavender and rosemary and NEVER showing any interest in the flowering avocados beside them.
Two weeks ago I whacked back the lavender and rosemary in preparation for the flowering avocados this spring.
It’s only anecdotal, but the bees last year couldn’t care less about the flowering avocados as long as there was lavender and rosemary in their flight pattern first. I was very happy to see you’ve experienced this too.
Just joined the party here in 9B in So Cal next door to Cal State Northridge.
CSUNNER
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