Haha my most humble apologies. I was sure you knew of Cowiche, but just didn’t see you write anything about it. I finally found something saying that Royal Helen was confirmed S1S4’ by IPS, I was just confused since Dave Wilson doesn’t seem to know the pollination status of their own variety. I think I will need to plant a few more rows so I can fit the Helens in there too. My tentative plans is about a 1/3 acres each of Cowiche, Tamara, Selah and Royal Helen. Then we’ll go from there. Hopefully we’ll be able to get more of the very late varieties here soon, but we’ll be in the heart of peach season by the end of the Helens anyway.
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Sorry, should have clarified my pictures. The first two should be Stella, and the last isn’t lapins…I think its my rainier graft (I remember it being bicolor). I posted because my bing, stella, rainer, lapins, and every cherry variety I have has been doing this to me.
My lapins is in its own area…
My bing surrounded by suckers…
Most of it is cut off in the pic, but none of my trees have ever really been pruned, so all the cherries are very tall.
Somewhere in that wall of green behind the bing is my multigraft as well, about 15ft away. The Tieton and Utah Giant have been planted nearby for future pollination.
What region are you living in? I wish I can grow all kind of Royal variety cherries.
Willamette Valley, Oregon. Not the ideal cherry region compared to NE Oregon and Washington, but we’ve had a cherry industry here for a long time. We have rain through about mid June typically, so fungicides are very necessary, but then we’re hot and dry until the end of September or so. Pseudomonas can be a bit of a problem, but we’ve never had huge issues with it. Sometimes bloom time can be a bit rainy as well, but we’ve always had good crops with self sterile varieties and limited bees. Never really needed frost protection either, but we do have it available and use it for peaches. When I was younger we were picking about 4,000 pounds a day plus u-picks, but that was before SWD became a problem. Although we did get a handle on it in a last few years of the orchards life.
I’ve read that the pit of Selah often shatters while eating, any experience with this?
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The best cherry I’ve ever had is called Sonnet Cherry, or Strawberry Rainier / Strawberry Cherry in the U.S.
Originally developed in BC Canada, they are grown in Washington state. People go crazy over them. They are not commonly sold in stores. Compared to Rainier, the Sonnet cherries are larger and sweeter.
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Jose! Good descriptions but no swearing please.
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Ok Mrs. Gibson.
I use them to highlight a very bad quality.
I avoid bad words that sound bad.
Best Regards
Jose
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Hi @Jose-Albacete .
I am seeing your big knowledge and experience shared regarding cherry trees.
A little help if you can.
I am from Portugal, from a zone 10a. In my zone, is it viable to grow cherry trees? If yes, what varieties do you recommend ?
Thanks a lot.
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Hi Xgoldpt.
Please tell me, if you would be so kind, what your population is (if your population is very small, tell me the name of a large population close to yours), this way I can access your climate table and have the appropriate data.
Best regards
Jose
Peng, Sonnet is a Canadian variety, which has nothing outstanding, it is an ordinary Canadian variety.
Logically you have not tried cherries with outstanding flavor, for example this variety is the cherry with the best flavor of all the ones I have tried:
- Justyna
This variety has an outstanding flavor, since it has all the good qualities:
- Crisp texture
- Very powerful flavor
- Extreme sweetness due to its very high brix
- Balanced acidity
This is an unusual cherry in terms of flavor.
Best regards
Jose
Hello Evefall.
I have not noticed that problem in the Selah variety.
It has the stone perfectly sealed and does not break when eaten, and regarding its resistance to cracking, last year it rained a lot of days during the ripening time , so I was able to test the most and least resistant varieties to cracking, and I gave Selah a medium-high resistance.
Best regards
Jose
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Steven, I see those likes with Selah and I know that it is a variety that you really like.
Since I know that you want to put cherry trees, these two varieties are mandatory:
- Selah (self-fertile, matures on Lapins dates)
- Tieton (self-incompatible, pollinates with Selah, and matures 8 days after Bing)
These two varieties are true champions, and have nothing to envy the best Zaiger varieties, such as Royal Brynn, or Royal Helen.
I always recommend them because they are excellent in all aspects.
Best regards
Jose
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Do you think that the rootstocks you are using or the placements in your orchard affect the ripening dates that you are seeing? The information I’ve collected put ripening dates forTieton earlier and Selah later than Bing.
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Hi Danm95356, you are right, since when giving Selah’s dates I confused Lapins with Bing (it is already edited).
These are the correct dates for Selah and Tieton.
Selah technical sheet
It matures on the same dates as Lapins, and Lapins matures 2 weeks after Bing, therefore:
- Selah matures 14 days after Bing
Now let’s go to Tieton
Tieton technical sheet
And there are no doubts here.
- Tieton matures about 7 days before Bing
Thanks for commenting, I had made a mistake.
Best regards
Jose
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This spring it rained a lot in my region during the flowering period of the cherry, plum and pluot, so this year my harvest is much smaller, because the pollinating insects do not fly with the rain.
But still, I have already started harvesting cherries.
- Brooks first two boxes on the left
- Sweet Lorenz center box
- 4-84 second box from the right
- Sweet Aryana first box on the right
Best regards
Jose
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VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE
My region is not prone to rain during the flowering periods, but this year has been abnormal, it rained a lot during the cherry blossom period, and one thing is perfectly clear.
The self-fertile cherry tree varieties have somewhat less harvest than last year (very optimal weather conditions), but even with continuous rains during flowering, the self-fertile varieties have a very good harvest, unlike the self-incompatible varieties whose harvest is minimal.
In my orchard, where I have a very large number of cherry trees, even if it is a bad year for fruit setting, I will harvest an acceptable harvest.
What conclusion do we draw from this?
For orchards with a small number of cherry trees and especially in areas at risk of rain during the pollination period, it is essential to use self-fertile varieties.
SECOND VERY IMPORTANT ADVICE
Birds do a lot of damage to our cherry crops, both in Europe and the United States.
In my region there are two species that are the most harmful.
- European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
- Blackbird (Turdus merula)
When I had few cherry trees fruiting, it was terrible, and I tried everything.
- Sound boosters of various types of sounds (raptor sounds, explosive sounds)
- Odor enhancers
- Tree netting
Sound repellents are useless, since birds are very clever and quickly get used to sounds.
Odor repellents are of no use either.
Netting trees is extremely hard work (putting on and removing nets), and it also damages many young branches.
Netting is effective for a small number of trees.
But what happens when there are many cherry trees?
And this is the great advice
The birds attack whit voracity the extra early ripening cherry varieties , devouring entire trees, but a very interesting phenomenon occurs after this, and that is that the same thing happens to them as it does to humans, if we eat a lot of the same thing, we come to hate it, and this happens to birds.
After becoming bloated of eating very early cherries, they hardly eat any more cherries (very curious).
Therefore, it is extremely advisable in medium-sized cherry orchards to introduce a few trees of very early and hyper-productive varieties (for example Nimba ) , which is a variety of cherry that produces an incredible number of kilos of cherries, and in this way (we sacrifice the hyper-early variety), but we will have the early, mid-season and late varieties safe.
Best regards
Jose
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They are absolutely beautiful. Will they grow in Southern California such as San Diego, Oceanside, Carlsbad?
handsome, Tieton and Selah are two very very very good varieties.
If you follow me in this thread you will have seen that I always praise them, since I like them both a lot.
I know the chilling hours requirement for Selah (700 hours), I don’t know it for Tieton, but it will be more or less the same.
I think that in your area you don’t have enough cold hours for these varieties.
Carlsbad climate table
https://en.climate-data.org/north-america/united-states-of-america/california/carlsbad-16239/
Best regards
Jose
Good morning jose, I’m glad to see here your messages and missing tips to most of us, I was looking forward to seeing what you write about your cherry season this year and in general about everything you have, in cherry trees has been a bit messed up because I’ve seen a lot of ice cream and I won’t eat many cherries this year, Then you reply to the private ones I sent you some time ago that I know you must have been busy, if you are so kind. Thank you and good day