What? Tart cherries can fruit in southern California?
That was what I said to Clausen Nursery (which used to carry English Morello and Kansas Sweet) as well as Walter Andersen Nursery (which carried English Morello).
LE Cooke gives some history on Kansas Sweet:
I personally confirmed Kansas Sweet and a few others. Now I have some grafts I am testing also. Report your experiments on tart cherries in Southern California on this thread! Thank you.
Here is Sumadinka, setting fruit on a 1 year old graft on Mazzard rootstock. This was helped along by finger pollination. Thank you to @Marta for this scion.
Sumadinka is off to a great start!
Both Sumadinka and Belle Magnifique bloomed profusely and started setting fruits on puny 1-year grafts. This is atypical year for chill hours so more evaluation is needed. I pinched all the fruitlets except for 1 or 2. Excited to see how they taste
Grafts of Meteor, Mesabi, and Evans are largely dormant at the end of May in inland Southern Californnia, arguing against their success here.
Jubileum (already bloomed a couple weeks ago - leafed out in background), Danube (on the left, bloomed last week), and Sumadinka (on the right) are the grafts that would be candidates for exploration.
What I do when I have the time is finger pollination to answer the question of whether fruting is even possible. (in Europe most tart cherries are considered partially self-fertile rather than self-fertile, noting that yields are increased with a pollinizer).
Sumadinka, after finger pollination, mostly from Amarena di Pescara and Kansas Sweet:
This was on a stick of a tree on a small graft that has no business making any fruit at all. This result is quite remarkable and portends heavy fruiting on a regular mature tree (assuming optimal pollination).
If you want to try tart cherries in So Cal try Sumadinka as your base tree and graft from there? (Cummins nursery sells it)
** note this is in another part of my yard that for some reason bloomed earlier.
2024 update, April 5:
-Belle Magnifique blooming
-Sumadinka leafing out
-Amarena di Pescara in bloom.
-Kansas Sweet died but would be in bloom (rootstock Krymks, don’t use that for tart cherries)
Last year Amarena di Pescara fruited. Great candidate if you want tart cherries in lower chill areas. Flavor was enjoyable. I need to get a bowl full before I can assess how much I like it.
