University of Saskatchewan zone 2 sour cherry breeding program from the beginning until now

General Fruit Growing
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If you want to add this collection i cannot recommend them highly enough

https://research-groups.usask.ca/fruit/Fruit%20crops/sour-cherries.php

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Sour Cherries

Zone 2 hardy Sour Cherries

Dwarf Sour Cherry for beginners

The breeding of dwarf sour cherries began in the 1940s by Dr. Les Kerr. The past 50 years of breeding have combined cold hardiness, dwarf stature, and good fruit quality into the final product. The cherry releases by the University of Saskatchewan are a great tasting cherry with high sugar content. They also have very good potential for mechanical harvesting which is necessary for commercial fruit production. Usask varieties are unique in their cold hardiness and short

  • In 1999, SK Carmine Jewel was released.
  • In 2004 the Dwarf Sour Cherries guide was published
  • In 2004 The Romance Series of Cherries was released

Dwarf Sour Cherry Guide

Dwarf Sour Cherries: A Guide for Commercial Production is available through the U of S Bookstore

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2021

2017

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2010

2009

2007 AND OLDER

history of Usask sour cherry Tarts with a touch of romance - Good Fruit Grower

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An entire industry has been built up in Canada from this program which i feel is nothing short of amazing https://www.cherryproducers.ca/

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Hi Clark,
Thanks for this post! I am working on a project to topwork my neighbors standard cherry trees with sour varieties. Are you aware of where I might obtain scions of these dwarfs? So far I have only found Montmorency
Dennis
Kent, wa

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they wont take on sweet cherries. monty will because it has a sweet cherry in its lineage. i have 2 sweets on my monty. kiristen and hayward.

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Hi Steve,
That’s good to know. Do you think they may take on Cherry plum? I have several varieties of rootstock both greenleaf and purple leaf that are natives here. The only stonefruit variety that I have had fail on the greenleaf variety is Cotton Candy where it’s a 100% failures this spring. In most cases it’s as good in compatibility as Adara plum. But for some reason it rejects that one. Even if I could locate a source for dormant Montmorency scions to use in summer budding that would be helpful.
Dennis

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@DennisD @steveb4

You can go the other direction sweet cherries grafted to carmine jewell or other romance series cherries

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pretty much the same as i said above. sweets and the U of SK cherries aren’t compatible but monty is as it’s got a sweet cherry relative.

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maybe would work. i tried grafting black ice plum on carmine jewel and carmine jewel on black ice. neither took. i put a scion of brookcot apricot on black ice and it took.

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I received a d’Artagnan cherry last year as a tiny baby plant from Honeyberry USA. (I cant believe i paid $40 for it).

I planted it next to a ditch that i grow my honeyberries at…it stays consistantly moist… and this year so far i have eaten 4 cherries off of it. Very nice cherries that i should have taken pics of… i ate them and they were sweet with a light kick of tartness.

As far as i know i dont have any pollinators or anything for it…

I paid up because it supposedly suckers and forms a hedge…so i figured it would be a sort of investment…

Cherries were about the size of a dime… no idea if they get bigger or not… and i have no idea what the others taste like but this one is good enough for me for fresh eating and probably some jam at some point.

Mine wasnt sour at all…

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i have c.j, Juliet and Romeo. all are good eating out of hand but Juliet is the best. not sure if its worth it to get the others as i have a steady supply of suckers to spread them around for free.

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Save your seeds!

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