Removing fruit trees: what and why?

Most of European sour cherries are not self pollinating. They require pollinators and some of them are more compatible with each other than others. I grafted several varieties of cherries on my Danube and hope it will help with the fruit set.

I have removed much trees because i have lack of space and for example i remove apple or plum and on that spot i plant asimina triloba or persimmon.

Maybe it does most years, I canā€™t recall. This year it was earlier, but of course it was a very early spring.

Thanks Mary. Supposedly the Erdi cherries are self-fertile, but I think there is a lot of misinformation floating around out there. Please post back your results from multiple variety pollenizers!

Boyerā€™s describes Danube and more productive than Montmorency, but that hasnā€™t been my experience at all. Maybe it has something to do with pollination. It seems strange the trees would produce so many flowers and so little fruit.

http://www.boyernurseries.com/fruit_cherry_list.html

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My danube was planted next to Black Gold and Vandalay. If it is pollination issue, BG and Vandalay would not be a good choice to cross pollinate Danube.

@BobVance, i think has a similar friut set issue with his Danube, too.

Yes, for several years now, mine has had plenty of blooms, but very little fruit-set (<10 on the whole tree).

I started grafting over it last year, both some sweets from Mamuang and sours from ARS.

I once found a scientific paper overviewing the varieties of cherries grown in Hungary. Erde Jubileum and Erde Botermo (Danube) were named the most commercially grown varieties. They also named the best pollinators for them. I think they should be productive to be commercially grown. This is at least my hope. :slight_smile:

Thatā€™s what has me puzzled Antmary. I would have thought MSU would have tested these cultivars somewhat extensively before releasing them here as commercial cultivars.

I came across this article which supports that Danube may benefit from cross pollination, as you suggest.

I emailed the cherry breeder who introduced the Erdi cultivars to the U.S., Dr. Iezzoni , this evening to try to find out if this is true. I donā€™t know if she will answer my email, but thought Iā€™d give it a try.

I planted 20 more Danube cherry trees this spring, so I have some skin in the game.

I have other sour cherries, but most are pretty far, maybe 100-150ā€™. The only cherries which are close by are bush cherries (Carmine Jewel, Crimson Passion and a Korean bush cherry), which are all 20-30ā€™ away.

According to the paper, ā€œSiah mashhadā€ (a sweet cherry) was the best pollinator. I donā€™t think I had many sweet cherries in bloom with it (they havenā€™t lasted long before I kill themā€¦). Though it sounds like Mamuang did.

Itā€™s worth noting that in the study the set rate went from 4.4% to 14.6% with pollination. That would still leave me with a pitiful set, as 3X * 5 to 10 is only 15-30 cherries on a decent sized tree.

Well, there are still some Danube branches left, so Iā€™ll see how it does this spring.

If sweet cherries are needed to cross pollinate Danube, Black Gold and Vandalay are not a good choice. They were only 10-20 ft away from Danube and bloomed about the same time. No help.

Maybe, Hungarian-bred sweet cherries would be a better choice for cross pollination. Schlabach used to carry 3-4 varieties of Hungarian-bred sweet cherries. Now, it only offer 1-2 from that set.

I have one, Black Star. It was too young to bloom when I removed Danube.

@BobVance - did I send you Black Star scionwood? If so, maybe, it would work.

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I saw that Bob, and your right, it does sound pitiful. But the study also indicates the best fruit set for Jubileum was 15%. Iā€™ve fruited Jubileum for some years and am satisfied with the yield. My one Jubileum tree produces a lot of cherries. So, if I could get Danube to produce as much as Jubileum, I think I would be satisfied.

I wasnā€™t quite following your math, but my Jubileum produced a lot of pounds last year, and every year it gets a little bigger and produces a little more (although itā€™s probably now reached itā€™s full potential this year).

Yeah, my math would have been clearer if I wasnā€™t trying to multiply a range. I should have just multiplied the max, which was around 10 cherries on the tree (theoretically going to 30ā€¦). I think the count went from roughly 4 ->6 ->10 cherries, so it has been increasing as it got older. Note that this was the fruit-set I counted, not what I was able to save from the birds (maybe 1-2 cherries/year), as it definitely wasnā€™t worth netting.

I suppose if you look at it as a mathematical progression (increasing 50% a year) I would eventually drown in cherries. After 10 more years Iā€™d be over 500 (enough for 2 pies) and after 20 years Iā€™d have 33,200 cherries (>400 lbs).

You did and I grafted it successfully, but not on the Danube. I just checked and the Danube has Black Gold and 3 ARS sours on it. Maybe Iā€™ll put Black Star on there this year, as I think I snipped a bit of the new growth off one of last years grafts during scion collectionā€¦

Here is the link to the abstract about polination of sour cherries: http://www.ishs.org/ishs-article/1020_25

It is says that the average set from self-polination was 2%, and the average set from natural cross-polination was 11%.

Lots of information about sour cherries from the articles in the International cherry symposium, but no full text papers are avaliable on-line :worried:

Iā€™m still pretty new to the fruit growing world, but one of the heardest learned lessons was knowing when to pull the plug on something. I grew attached to the trees (ok thatā€™s a little weird) at least the first ones I planted, and was pretty upset when 3 or 4 of them failedā€¦After a while I accepted that it comes with the territory. I just donā€™t have enough room to mess around with non-producers so now I wonā€™t hesitate to take them out.

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I have a sour cherry seedling (at one time i had Meteor, Evans, Northstar==all gone nowā€¦this i believe was a seed from Meteor). It has never set fruit although its bloomed 3 years straight (and its full of flowers again). Maybe i can try pollinating it with Lapins? Carmine Jewel? Very pretty tree so iā€™ve kept it.

You definitely can try it. I think that sweet cherry is less likely to pollinate sour cherry, they have different ploidy levels, although hybrids does happen. Carmine jewel would be my first choice. I have Carmine jewel grafted on Danube, so Iā€™ll try it too.

Lol. If you could just let that tree grow an additional 35 years, it would produce almost 300,000 tons, more than twice the current U.S. annual tart cherry production. A retirement investment?

I know patience is a virtue, but I donā€™t think I want to wait 55 years. At that point Iā€™d be almost 100 and it would be hard for me to pick 300,000 tons. :slight_smile:

Today I grafted both Black Star and Black Republican onto it. I may also put a few more ARS varieties that Stan was kind enough to share.

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Any updates on your Pixie Crunch? I have one that is just starting to break dormancy, a couple of branches have blossomed while the others have buds that are swelling. Iā€™ll let it fruit this year so Iā€™m looking forward to tasting one. About how long will the fruit take to ripen after blooming?

Jury is still out on the Honeycrisp, most likely too warm here in SoCal. I only had 150 hours of chilling this winter and its still dormant.

I have higher chill hours at my location but Honeycrisp appears to need more. My plans are to keep it a little longer only because it is a good tasting apple. Jury is still out here also.

Iā€™ve had north star cherry a long time and itā€™s always non productive. I question why Iā€™ve kept it this long but this year a Montmorency I grafted close by is blooming and we will see what north star will do. I always say it but next year I will top work it to Montmorency unless it shapes up this year.