At the store I saw some cherries called Giant Rainier. Basically really big Rainiers and I thought tasted better. Is this a real variety? An internet search brings up nothing.
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I have not seen almost any cherries actually marked where I live. Most are just labeled something like California cherries. There are Rainier cherries though. Rainier are a yellow cherry. While they are widely known once you start looking for actual trees you find trees like white gold are a better cherry tree than rainier although I do have a Rainier cherry tree growing in the back. There is certain breeding programs for crosses. Someone crossed a plum and a cherry to create the Nadia cherry. Zaiger created the pluerry and pluots which have varying traits of other fruit and varying amounts of other fruit traits. Honestly if you want a bigger cherry a pluot could be in question. I just tried a pluot from my local king soopers which is the local Kroger. It honestly was just as sweet as a cherry and was a bigger size. In fact the pluot was likely sweeter than some cherries I had earlier this season around May or April.
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I am not sure what you mean when you said White Gold is better than Rainier? In what way? Taste, size, grow-ability?
Are you talking from your own experience?
White Gold is a disease resistant cherry. Cherries are one of those groups of fruit that are not going to be better from the store. For that reason I would more rate home grown cherries based on three factors and those factors are disease resistance, self fertile and cold resistance. Those three reasons are the reasons I grow white gold and black gold. White Gold is more disease resistant and self fertile and black gold is self fertile and blossoms bloom later and can withstand more cold which is important for those with seasons that swing more like mine. Cherries all get massive so assuming you don’t want two sweet cherries taking up most of your space I highly recommend self fertile varieties if you don’t have a lot of space. I can have 1.5 to 2 standard sized apples for every one standard sized cherry tree planted.
I think you got thing backward. Cherries are one of a few fruit that store bought are, generally speaking better than home grown.
I am talking about the cherry varieties for backyard growers in the east. Black Gold, White Gold, Stella, Kristin, etc.
My Black Gold for 12 years old. I grafted White Gold on it. I have tasted both. They tasted fine but nowhere near store bought Bing or Rainier.
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I have 2 Rainier trees and I’m a fan, but White Gold is a good tree. Of all the cherries I have WG got the least amount of PC and rot.
I like White Gold more than Black Gold but to say that they are better than Rainier or Bing(both taste and texture), even store bought, is not my experience.
Have your Rainier produced? I like Utah Giant more than B&W Gold but the graft died this year. It may not like my winter.
How big are the Utah Giants? Did you get enough to grade them on PC and rot?
Don’t know.
But mutations & sport branches do happen.
This is a Rainer cherry that ended up red with white flesh & tastes like cotton candy.
Only a graft, not a tree. The fruit is the size of a large Bing. The texture is firmer than B and W Gold. I really like it.
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You and I are saying the same thing about store bought. Basically my argument is you are more so growing home grown cherries for the offset of cost over taste so I would rather have better attributes of the tree. For cherries I more so care about the quantity the trees are going to give me over my money spent on the tree and the land it is taking up. Like I said cherries take up a lot of land compared to other trees so I would rather have a lower cost of running the tree if possible.
I don’t know how growing friendly is your area. It is not easy to grow cherries where I am. It is cheaper to buy cherries from stores and get good tasting cherries.
Growing cherries needs on-going care with both fungicide and pesticide, organic or not. Birds, squirrels, chipmunks will want them. All in all, it is not really a cost effective tree for me.
But, hey, my home grown peaches also cost about $10 each, all things considered.
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Also I had 2 Utah Giant and now have one. When I first got into fruit trees I tried to grow mostly cherries. The Rainier and Utah Giant that survived had flowers this year but were bitten off by a late frost. The two that I no longer have leafed out the year I got them and then leaves turned brown, wilted and fell off the tree. That is why I decided to focus on disease and cold resistance more so. With regular cherries everything kills them.
Colorado is great for growing trees when it is a good year I should paraphrase. We have little moisture which creates extra sweet trees. Fungus is not generally a problem so sprays for fungus are generally not needed for trees. Animals are a issue here for sure though. We have deer, raccoons, birds, squirrels chipmunks etc. I suppose the goal would be to plant enough that the deer cannot obtain much above the lower branches of fruit and the birds squirrels and chipmunks don’t eat them all because you have enough growing nature and you can have their share. Like I said above our issues are more so the late frosts assuming you have the space.
This year my White Golds were as good as the best store-bought yellow cherries. I could pick them at optimal ripeness so they were sweeter and had more flavor. My reds though are still not as good as the best store-bought ones. Well, Black Tartarian probably is better but I don’t get a big harvest from my wimpy tree.
My guess is “Giant Ranier” is referring to the size, they sort them by size and those are the biggest ones.
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You tell them. Me 2
Your probably right. They were twice the size of regular Rainier though.
Scott,
How’s your Attika cherry doing? Has it produced fruit yet?
Mine are too Best flavor and sweetness this tree has ever produced. I have grafts of Utah Giant and Emperor Francis. Both are amazing. Utah taste super sweet even before ripe. The sweetest cherry I ever tasted home garden or store bought.
I have only sampled some. I have not harvested yet, letting them hang.
I still have not harvested my tart cherries. They too like Juliet is sweet enough to actually eat fresh this year. Also bird pressure is like zero. Never seen anything like it. It is the year of the cherry.
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It flowered for the first time this year but didn’t set … I expect it will set next year. The main red cherry for me is still Regina, it is fine tasting but not outstanding. The tree has been very happy though.
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