Jose, thank you. poor production in marginal years for self-sterile cherries has been observed by professional growers here, who are aware of s-alleles and flowering times and always plant the best possible pollinizer varieties:
“Self-fertility is a double-edged sword, he noted. On the positive side, production tends to be more consistent, particularly in poor pollination years. Some growers won’t plant varieties that are not self fertile. The down side is that when conditions are good for pollination and fruit set, the trees can overcrop.”
in my own garden I have good coverage for s-alleles and flowering times and I’ve also observed this effect
my guess, and this isn’t based on any observations or data, is that when weather limits the activity of long-ranged pollinators like the euro honeybee, there are still many other pollinators active which are short-ranged. the short-ranged pollinators don’t tend to carry pollen from tree to tree very well (which would be needed for self-sterile varieties), but can still get self-fertile cherries to produce
The self fertile cherries are more sensitive, than those needing cross pollination, to drought and heat stress than can knock out bloom the following year. Don’t ask me how I know. Because that has been my biggest issue with sweet cherries in my greenhouse where I’m running a water deficit to increase brix.
I have had cherries with 25-32+ brix that are so superb they’ll knock your socks off.
Hello z0r, if indeed the tendency of professional cherry growers is to plant self-fertile varieties since more consistent harvests were obtained, in fact the tendency of breeders is to obtain new varieties where one of the most important premises is self-fertility.
Personally, I hate cherry varieties with an overloaded yield, which is why I prefer varieties with a more contained yield such as Pacific Red, Giant red Mariant, Rocket, Selah, Tieton, Sweet Stephany, Tamara, Royal Helen, Glen Red Sequoia, etc. …
and I especially hate highly loaded varieties like Lapins or Black Star, since harvesting these varieties is Chineses job hahahaha.
What are the varieties of cherry that you like the most for their good qualities?
Hi Steve .
Hahaha, it seems that North Americans and Europeans from southern European countries share a taste for extremely sweet fruit, unlike Europeans from northern European countries who prefer fruit with a high level of acidity.
In a way, we could compare cherries to good varieties of pluots, since what is really pleasing to the palate is that certain balance between very high Brix values and a touch of acidity, which turns these flavors into authentic delights for the senses.
My goodness, if you were to subject the Justyna variety to hydric stress, which gives 30 ° brix naturally, you would have harvested candies hahahaha
Jose thank you for all your comments. I’ve been wanting Utah Giant so was glad to see your evaluation. I’ll pick it up next winter.
My best sweet cherries have both high brix and high acid. Getting the harvest right helps. I probably harvest later than most. No pests in my greenhouse helps.
What do you think of Selah? I like it’s size and color but never got much yield.
Steven, both Utah Giant and Selah, are two super varities.
Neither of the two varieties overloads the harvest, so huge sizes (16-18 grams each cherry) are obtained.
Perhaps Utah Giant is a little sweeter on the palate than Selah (both are fantastic).
For those who grow outdoors (not you), Utah Giant is much more sensitive to cracking than Selah.
I am very glad that you have these two varieties, since they will only give you joy.
There is a North American variety, that if you do not have it in your greenhouse, you have to introduce it.
I mean the Tieton variety.
He is another super champion variety.
Jose, I have very little experience with cherries compared to you, but two varieties that stand out are lapins and (sour cherry) surefire. Lapins is one of the standard commercial cherries here, I think it’s being superseded for larger size suff but it’s still very common. I don’t think it gets the size you’re after but the flavor and firmness are great, and seems to be fairly consistent with our bad pollination weather. surefire (sour) is valuable just because it seems to always make fruit
I’ve had lots of “sweetheart” which is from the same program as lapins but late season, it is just as you say, being self fertile it makes for very small cherries, but again the flavor is great (texture sometimes a little soft). huge amounts of it were planted here commercially, way too much, and as a result we get very affordable cherries in the supermarket every August (small size which can’t be exported, sold cheaply), which I appreciate. the summerland program is working on later and later season cherries which is a big win for pnw growers because we are a later season climate than california, giving us an open market window to sell cherries without competing with california
here’s an article on the summerland program. because of the problems getting varieties at retail I don’t have all that I want; I think my ideal setup to cover ~6 weeks would be santina - [?] - lapins - sweetheart - sentennial. I’m missing the sentennial season and not sure what to put in the [?] spot near bing, most of summerland’s bing-season cherries are self-sterile
Damn , z0r he said the forbidden word, which is “Lapins” hahahaha.
There are three varieties that I hate to death, and they are my archenemies:
Golden Japan plum
Golden DeliciousApple
Cherry Lapins
In the fruit-growing forums in Spain, I have spoken tremendously badly of these three varieties, for many years, and the bastards of my fellow forum members always joke with me, with comments like these:
Lapins is the Ferrari of cherries
Golden Japan is the Maradona of plums
The Golden apple is the Maserati of apples
The Spanish character is very different from yours, and here a lot is joked
But back on topic.
Lapins is a piece of cherry shit (it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact), he has all the flaws you can ask for
Totally vertical growth tendency and without branching, which hinders the period of tree formation
It is a variety of cherry, which offers little caliber
To make matters worse, it is a variety that is ultra-productive, so it overloads the harvest and you don’t take cherries you harvest chickpeas hahahahaha
In short , from Lapins it is necessary to " FLEE "
The Canadians of Pico Summerland obtained another variety to replace Lapins given its bad characteristics, and the variety that improved the characteristics of Lapins is the Skeena variety.
In very favorable climates for the cultivation of cherry trees, you have to resort to Canadian varieties, when there is no other possible option, but I warn you that in Oregon the Californian varieties will behave much better than the Canadian ones.
So that I can recommend you varieties with some criteria, let me know if you have suitable early harvest varieties and mid-season varieties (I’m sure they can be improved), and if you are only looking for late maturing varieties.
I am going to show you a couple of varieties of late maturation, which will leave you perplexed hahahahaha.
They are two varieties of the German breeder Peter Stoppel , of the Cerasina series
Please read carefully its characteristics
Cerasina Final 12.1 ( Ripens 47 days after Burlat, or what is the same 28 days after Bing )
Steve, do you remember that I recommended the Tieton variety to you?
Unfortunately, I did not evaluate the weight and brix of this variety, but I do have a photo so you can see what it is like.
Lapins is on the chopping block here as well. I found that it grows extremely fast and hard to keep in check. The fruit was just OK. I’m thinning the variety herd and grafting over to only the easiest and best varieties that work here.
How do cherry prices compare to other fruit in Europe?
Hello, Jose! You are my idol. I come from Chongqing, China. I plant Pacific Red and Tioga sweet cherry varieties. It is rainy in June and hot in summer. I am very concerned about the performance of your IFG sweet cherry varieties in Spain. Can you introduce your cherry crunch?
I thought you’d say this about lapins. certainly it’s an older variety that’s in the process of being superseded, but it’s made a lot of growers a lot of money and it’s reliable. tolerance of poor springs is the key thing here. not to say this is a poor cherry area, the bing cherry originated here and a century ago the valley was full of cherry orchards (now replaced with houses), just that this is the main challenge
there are actually two fairly different fruit growing regions in oregon, the west and east sides. the east side (such as hood river) is where most cherries are now grown commercially, wherever they have irrigation rights (although there is still some commercial growing on the west side), but most of the population lives on the west side. the west side has the more challenging spring weather and less testing nowadays of successful varieties that tolerate the springs. summerland breeding targets the dry valleys in british columbia such as the okanagan, these are probably closer to eastern oregon than western oregon:
I’m mostly interested in early season varieties actually, it’s just that with summerland being the closest breeder to me (well, wsu is closer technically), their specialty is late season stuff
you may be interested in this survey of common pnw varieties:
Very impressive yields! You mentioned you had good pollination this year which can really matter for pears hear. Our biggest fear with pears is broken branches when that happens. What do you attribute your success with sweet cherries to? Climate? Variety?Tieton looks amazing! What sweet cherry would be the easiest to grow in harsh conditions in your opinion?
Hello again guys.
I think you all think that cherry trees are my specialty in fruit trees and that is not the case.
I have many varieties of cherry trees, but it is not the favorite fruit variety for me.
What I like the most is the stone fruit (peaches of all kinds, nectarines, flat peaches, plums and I really like pluots and other interspecific hybrids).
These are two varieties of Pavias ( Cling peach ) harvested this afternoon
Hi Clark.
This year has been let’s say… “good”, for cherry tree pollination, but not a “very good” year, due to the scorching heat during the flowering and fruit set season.
Fruit overload is a nuisance in any type of fruit variety, luckily the cherry tree does not need to thin the fruit.
Due to overloading of fruits, branch breaks occur in almost everything (peach, nectarine, apricot, etc…), but the cherry tree has 2 peculiarities, which makes it almost impossible to break branches due to overload
The cherry tree does not fructify in branches of one year, it fructifies in branches of 2 years and older
The cherry tree has a strong tendency to vertical growth of its branches, therefore it supports powerful loads
For the cultivation of the cherry tree there are no bad conditions, there are bad choices.
I’m sick of seeing dead, unproductive cherry trees from buying the wrong varieties on the wrong rootstocks.
For the cultivation of cherry trees there is only one “absolute” impediment, and that is that the requirement of cold hours in winter or heat in summer for ripening is not met, “full stop”, everything else is simply a matter of ignorance. and poor choice of varietals and rootstocks.
If the impediment is lack of chill hours, choose low-chill varieties, if the problem is wet weather, choose varieties resistant to cracking and fungal diseases, if the impediment is root problems, choose to use the appropriate rootstock.
It’s that easy.
Regards Clark
Steve , put these two varieties on your cherry list if you do not have them in your greenhouse , as they are the two best varieties of the Royal serie of Zaiger .
Royal Ansel, in Europe marketed under the name of Royal Bailey (tremendous size, sweetness and flavor for an early cherry)
Royal Helen, the undisputed queen of late-ripening cherries, is the best of the best in the Royal series
Regards Steven
Hi again z0r.
It is infinitely easier to get good early-harvest cherry varieties than late-harvest varieties.
There are loads of good early harvest varieties in my collection.
In the document from the University of Oregon, there are some very interesting varieties, but I don’t know why the best variety of the Zaiger Royal series is not talked about in the United States.
I have all the interesting varieties in the Royal series, and almost all of them are very good, but there are 4 varieties in this series. that are a step above the others and I will tell you about them.
Of the classic varieties of the Royal series, these two varieties stand out:
Royal Bailey (in Europe), known in the United States as Royal Ansel, this variety:
Royal Helen, which is a true marvel in late-ripening cherries
look at Royal Helen on an plantation in a town of Zaragoza ( Spain )
and then there are the two new varieties of the Royal series marketed in Europe, which are these two (both fantastic)
Royal Hermione
Royal Lafayette
Of the varieties in the document of the University of Oregon I have all the varieties except the bicolor varieties and the varieties of the Pearl series of the University of Cornell, which are my true nightmare.
The series of Pearl cherries ( Ebony , Black , Burgundy and Radiance ) , I have been after these varieties for years and years , and I have had very bad luck , since I buy trees in American nurseries ( with the exception of Radiance Pearl , which I love , but I can’t find it in any North American nursery), but the Spanish Customs seem to like these varieties and they detect the postal envelopes with the cuttings and destroy them.
Before you get the wrong idea about me, I highly respect patented varieties and I would “NEVER” share these varieties with anyone in Europe, they are simply to be enjoyed in my family orchard .
But as I tell you z0r, the Pearl series is a jinx for me (I have no luck getting these varieties).
In the document a really extraordinary variety appears, I mean the Czech variety Tamara, this variety:
-Tamara
It is one of the best varieties of cherry today.
I have many Central European varieties in my orchard and they are very good, but Tamara is really special.
Regads z0r
Hi Robert
Very good question regarding the varieties of white and bicolor cherry.
As time went on I became more concerned with the high quality red cherry varieties, leaving the bicolor varieties aside year after year.
But " YES " , it is indeed a pending issue, since there are some varieties bicolors that are really spectacularly good.
I want to start introducing in my orchard the following varieties:
Very easy to get:
Rainier
Starblush
Stardust
Pretty hard to get:
Radiance Pearl
I’ve been trying to buy a tree of the Radiance Pearl cherry variety, from the Pearl series of the Cornell University , in the United States for some years, but I can’t find any nursery that has that variety available.
Very, very difficult to find and a variety highly desired by me:
Tip Top (Skylar Rae)
This year the cherry has been quite well paid because there has not been much harvest since it has rained a lot in the producing areas and a lot of production has been lost, but to the farmer around four to six euros in the field for per kilo of cherries and in supermarkets they were around eight and ten euros per kilo of cherries
I’ve never even heard of Pearl series. A good chunk of the cherry I grow are from the Cornell program. I’m a fan. Bulletproof trees and good taste. I consider their knock off bing Black York better than the real bing.
Hi shuge.
Pacific Red is infinitely better than Royal Tioga.
The trees of the two IFG varieties (Cheery Grand and Cheery Treat) are still very young and have at least 2 years left to bear fruit.
Now they are in the period of formation of the structure of the tree.
Jose, I am looking for a cling-free yellow peach to grow in zone 9a Uzes, France. I can only find mainly white peaches here. I already have two heritage varieties. Grosse Migonne et Charles Ingouf. The latter is new and will only give me two peaches its first year. What do you suggest. I grow all of my fruit trees in large pots. What are your favorite apricots. Stonefruits are my favorite too.
Before recommending varieties, tell me if you are looking for this type of peach.
This type of peach is called Pavias in Spain, and they are very typical of the Aragon region (they are world famous).
Hi guys
I often talk to you about the Monrepós plum tree, which, like Adara, is used to make stone fruit rootstock compatible, or plum with cherry.
but surely you do not know what a Monrepós plum tree is like.
I put a couple of photographs so you can see what a Monrepós plum tree and its fruit look like.
