Sour Cherry tasting in California?

Andy Moriani (search for Andy Moriani’s orchard in Morgan Hill) usually had Hungarian cherries (Danube, Balaton, and Jubileum) in one of his summer tasting. These tastings are very popular with the Bay Area crowd, but not sure whether they will happen this year due to you know what.

I’m in Tracy and grow a number of European varieties as well as Canadian bush cherry varieties. Among the European varieties I have Lutowka (it’s basically the same as English Morello aka Schattenmorelle), Balaton (Újfehértói fürtös) and Jubileum (Érdi Jubileum), all planted in 2016, Danube (Érdi bőtermő) and Kansas Sweet, both grafted in 2019 and planted this year. I also had very little success with grafting tart cherry varieties from the NPGS collection in Geneva. In my first attempt, a few years ago, all grafts and Krymsk-5 rootstocks under them died. This year, Pamyati Vavilova on Krymsk-5 and on Balaton, and Favorit on Balaton seem alive and doing ok, but several others died.

Among Canadian bush cherries (Prunus cerasus x P. fruticosa), I have multiple bushes of Carmine Jewel, Juliet, and Romeo (some planted in fall 2015 and some in fall 2016), and one Crimson Passion (one survived out of three).

In 2019, Lutowka for the first time produced a non-negligible amount of fruit for me (Stan's harvest diary 2019 - #39 by Stan), while Balaton and Juliet had a few cherries each. This year, Lutowka, Balaton, Juliet, and Carmine Jewel each produced a decent amount.

In my location, all tart cherry trees struggle during the summer heat, and I had many trees and grafts that did well in spring and then died in the middle of the summer. Balaton seems to do better than Jubileum, both in growth and production. Juliet seems to be the healthiest and most vigorous among the bush cherries. Lutowka does pretty well, but the fruit it produces is mostly for processing, it would be too tart for fresh eating for most people. Many people in the Bay Area grow English Morello because Dave Wilson trees are sold in many local nurseries. It’s basically the same as Lutowka.

6 Likes