My "Romance series" cherries

Here is an article I found of a Manitoba 10 acre planting. It states that the bushes grow 8 to 12’ tall. This is a test field in Ca. too.
https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/production/fruit-crops/print,prairie-hardy-dwarf-sour-cherries-each-cultivar-has-unique-qualities.html

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My Romeo bloomed at second leaf, will it self pollinate?

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Yes, but maybe not this year, often they just fall off first time.

My Juliet is 2nd leaf and looks to have a few buds too. I was reading up in Canada where Juliet many years had the highest brix, not all years, but it is a fairly high brix sour cherry and very reliable producer. To me it appears to be the best one.

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If you just have a couple, they may drop off as Drew says. My bushes have hundreds of flowers this year, but I noted last year and have heard from others, that you usually get a lot of blooms not making it to cherries. It is either pollination or they’re just self thinning. At least that is my experience. Perhaps when I have some of those 25 pound producing monsters I’ll get a higher percentage of flowers becoming cherries. I can’t complain since they’re still producing quite well for their size, just not as much as the flowering let me hope for.

This year I also have about a dozen or so flowers on my 2 Juliet bushes (also 2nd year and from Henry Fields), so I’m wondering if having a different type of romance cherry growing may help increase the pollination if that is an issue.

My biggest concern this year is that we had a pop of heat that got them to open their buds and then cold weather ever since with very few pollinators out.

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Just saw this spot on one of my romance bushes (sadly, I can’t tell which is which right now!).

I was trying to understand this article http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/cherry_leaf_spot_get_an_early_start_on_protection_before_the_fungus_gets_st and “bract stage” and “shuck” stage are confusing for me. None of my four bushes had flower buds or bloomed, so I was aiming for timing sprays around petal fall, as @mamuang had suggested, but I poorly understood that the petals would fall before the leaves came out. Or are these “bracts?” Thanks for any advice! These are the three sprays I have. I know my dear husband would appreciate my not spending more money on this hobby considering how unfruitful it has been this far- ha!

I would think it would help. Probably having other tart cherry trees would too.
Here my trees are still weeks from bloom and I’m already seeing bees. Bloom is very late this year.

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Well my bush cherries, my plum and peach should bloom in about a week. I’m going to start logging dates, I wish I would have been doing that. I did some years, but not all.
I noticed my Russian honeyberries are close to flowering, and the Japanese are 2 weeks away.
Soon I will be harvesting some pollen for stone fruit crosses i want to do.

To my surprise my second Leaf Juliet has a few blooms. Carmine Jewell is right next to it and has a single bloom. These are on the other side of my property from the other cherries so not sure if they will get pollinated or set any fruit.

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They are self fertile. I had only one Carmine Jewel for years and it fruits very well.I have added Jewel now.

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Hi There,
From the article bract leaves are the leaves that open about the same times as cherry blooms open. The MSU suggested growers spray at this time if they have a severe cherry leave spot problem. Your trees don’t have blooms this year. I think the leaves in your pic would be considered bract leaves.

Among your fungicide shown, Immunox is what I use (myclobutanil). It has worked well for me. In your situation, I’d spray it now, then about 10-14 days later when the rest of the tree fully leaf out. If you want to be sure, you could spray the 3rd time with the same time interval.

I spray twice which is sufficient for me. My timing is a bit later that yours because my first spray is after petal fall (flowers mostly gone) and then 10-14 days later (depending on how much rain I get). At the time, my apple trees also leaf out. I spray apple with Immunox for Cedar Apple Rust, too, at the same time.

Hope this help.

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I have cut a branch of one of my bigger cherry trees and batted it against the blossoms. I then taped a small jar of water to the trunk and stuck that branch in the tree to help pollinate. Every day I would pull it out and bat it against the blooms. It last for about a week if the weather is good. I’m not sure what will pollinate these but I bet any sour cherry tree would. with how little of blossoms you have you could just use a qtip and collect pollen without cutting a branch.

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I put them oon Google calendar as Annual events. Easy way to keep track

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Thanks I will probably do that, besides in my journal.

when i see the terms “romance cherry” and “bush cherry,” i think back to my days as a young man.
:grin:

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I like to keep my bush cherries neatly trimmed.

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Too funny! U os Sas calls them dwarf sour cherries. maybe we should stick with that? Carmine Jewel isn’t part of the romance series. Romeo is not mentioned much, but sounds like a good cherry too. If I was just ordering I would probably just get Romeo and Juliet.

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great idea

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My second leaf Romeo bloomed and it looks like a few may have set, should be able to tell for sure in another week

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After finishing up mowing this evening, I noticed my second leaf Romeo bush had a couple blossoms on it. Very surprising considering it’s no more than a couple feet tall. The same age Juliet plant next to it is about 4ft tall, and nary a bloom on it. Perhaps its bloom time is later?

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I have 2 Carmine Jewel and 1 Juliet. This year they surprised me. The 2nd leaf Juliet was watched closely and did not appear to have any flower buds at all, but since it grew to 5 ft tall in year 1 I didn’t mind. Seemed sudden when I saw a few flowers and then in 2 days it pushed out maybe 200 flowers. The 2 CJs 3rd leaf though, I hoped for some blooms on both since they had loads of fruit buds, but 1 bloomed very heavy, while the other had deformed flowers that only seemed to open halfway, and it’s pushing leaves out but they seem disfigured a bit. It doesn’t seem to have any disease process happening and couldn’t have been sprayed yet, so I wonder if a cat passed by and “claimed” it. I’ll watch and put a picture on here for advice if it doesn’t improve. Those are in a row, with a 2nd leaf NorthStar Cherry at the end that is 5 ft tall and 5 ft across, that was a round cloud of white blooms with small fruit appearing now. Maybe this year I’ll have enough sour cherries to work with, finally.

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