I’m wondering what experiences other home or bigger-than-home growers experiences are with these cherries. Particularly growers who have well-established bushes.
I planted Cupid, Juliet, Romeo and Carmine Jewel in spring 2011 as two-foot tall potted plants. They are now 6-7 feet tall. This is year 5 in my garden and they have flowered every year, though usually had little to no fruit to harvest. 2014 was the first year they all fruited, although in small quantities, anywhere from a handfull (most varieties) to 2 or 3 pounds for Carmine Jewel.
The U of S literature indicates that once they are mature enough to produce a light crop, the next year they will produce a very large crop. So this year I waited eagerly… flowering was very heavy and during a spell of sunny, dry weather, I saw lots of bees on the flowers, and we never had a frost colder than -1C (30F) once the buds opened, which should not have produced any damage.
Yet here I sit, with a crop that is lighter than last year. So disappointing. I am located 500 km almost due-west of where these cherries were developed, so the climate is very similar… winters here (zone 3a) just a bit milder, and summers just a bit cooler.
I don’t fertilize these bushes but they are located just inside my veggie garden. I don’t water them unless it is extremely dry, plus once just before winter freeze-up.
Why are they not yielding the big crops they are supposed to? They are shading an ever-growing part of my vegetable garden… if the cherries aren’t going to produce then I’ll chop them down and let the tomatoes have more light…
Pollinated flowers that don’t hold fruit are usually the result of a lack of maturity in the tree or a lack of adequate energy to hold the fruit.
Commercial growers often feed cherries foliar N in the fall to make sure they have enough juice once they begin to leaf out in the spring. Such applications can be made in the spring for apples but by then it is too late for cherries to utilize it on their crop. I only mention this to show how adequate energy is important towards cropping. Ample N accelerates leaf formation and the sooner the leaves start pumping energy into potential fruit production the more likely it will happen.
How this pertains to your problem, I don’t know. Potted trees are more difficult to keep adequately nourished than trees in the ground but root restriction speeds maturity.
I don’t grow the Romance series, so I hope someone here who does can provide more clarity.
I always thought that one shouldn’t fertilize after about early July so that the plants could harden off for winter. How do the commercial growers time the foliar N application? I have a number of different kinds of cherry trees that have never produced a crop yet. Some years they seem to set a meager crop, but then the cherries disappear when still pea-sized. Maybe this would help. My soil is rather poor and sandy.
The idea is to spray it on the leaves long enough before they drop for them to pass it into the buds for next year. Timing would vary with zone, but generally, in late summer. Potential stimulation of new growth that season should be over by then. It is an over rated issue at any rate and is based on theory but not so much on research, IMO.
My carmine Jewell’s produced more than we cared to pick in clay soil. At first they appeared to set a light crop. The fruits are hidden good by foliage. I gave each bush 5 gallons of cow manure in February and 2-3 inches of wood mulch all around them. I gave them a pint of magnesium and azomite as well each. Take good care of them and they will produce a lighter crop than say montmorency but it will be enough. I would say mine produce half or maybe only 1/3 as much as some cherries I have seen but the quality was impressive this year. Let them go another year or two. I won’t go against experts who recommend nitrogen but it doesn’t produce cherries for me it just produces green growth. Btw I have two more carmine Jewell’s on my place in another spot I just gave cow manure that are a year older and they only produced 5 cherries between them. They are for sure lighter on the fruit than most but the more I know about them the more I like them. I can’t speak for the other sister cherries because I only own CJ. I suspect the magnesium and azomite had something those bushes needed or it could have been the wood chips. We got a lot of rain this year also
