The climate in New Zealand…would it be like Zone 8-10 or do you get ’cold’ weather in your Winters? I live in southern California and as you know, we dont get much ’rain’ let alone temperatures below 50* almost all year long. i visited Campbell Town Scotland once and that temperture remained cool and damp most of the year…(I was informed)…and though i always wanted to ’see’ Australia and New Zealand, i never got an invite so i don’t know the climate. a great encouragement to guys like us is to watch videos on Youtube about growing Food Forests!!!!…and those guys amazing success about all types of ideas!!!!!

Good morning, i am sorry to revive such an old thread. I am new to fruit trees, in canadian zone 5b ish. (Its my inderstanding that the official calculation method for zone hardiness differs between canada and USA so i wonder if I should assume i actually am in zone 4b) I hope those who tried sweet cherry in z5 or z4 got some success! I am commenting because I found this publication, in french, of Quebec fruit "production" of cherry and peach. The book is titled "Les fruits du quebec, histoire et traditions des douceurs de la table" from Paul-Louis Martin. Starting page 167 on, he mentions some sour and some sweet cherry varieties that where seemingly commercially grown around here at the time (Village of Abbotsford is zone 4b/5a for example) circa 1800. Since I am not an expert, I might be reading this wrong as he switches from sour to sweet varieties names between paragraphs. (Grillote, Cerise de France, cerise commune et cerise franche are some of the denominations I read, without knowing to which group they belong to, except for Grillote which is montmorency type.) There are some phrases like "Many years ago, a black sweet cherry with a delicious flavor grew largely about Montreal". Later, there is mention of varieties such as May Duke and Black Eagle that grew as cold as Saint-Denis-De-Kamouraska Z4. Here is a link to the google book Les fruits du Quebec Histoire et traditions des douceurs de la table. I dont know it it can be of any help to anyone. Here is a list of varieties, maybe someone knows them and can say what they are and if they could be of interest (1790): May Duke (sour) Morello (sour) Early Black Black Heart Kentish I too am looking for hardy varieties. On my side I see some green on my sweet varieties but I dont think i'm getting much fruit this year, as when I dissected buds in March with razor blades, most had some brown in the center. Thank you for all the great information you provide!

Agreed. Danube isn't a duke, some catalog listed it that way but its a morello type (red-fleshed) sour. Scott

The trees in the photo are potted. They were grown outside about two years and I couldn't get anything on Gisela 5 to grow outside. This is their second year in a 15 gallon pot. They have grown much better in pots in the greenhouse than outside. I actually thinned off about 1/3 of the fruit that set. During chilling Extenday reflective fabric is suspended on the trusses over the trees to help keep the heat above the trees. A shade cloth outside would be even better but that requires 42ft by 54ft just to cover the poly. In the past I've tried to keep the temperature between 37 and 54F. The heater maintains 37F fine and most winter nights are that cold. Most days the high is between 54 and 60F when running the cooler pad and two fans. This next winter I'll probably run the heater at 34F to save a little money. The Utah model gives full chilling credit between 37 and 48F, less between 34-37 and 48-54F. Negative chilling above 60F. So yes I've controlled chilling closely to achieve Utah hrs. In a cloudy or cooler climate, winter chilling would be easy compared to our sun and warmth. In Dec and Jan I can average about 19 Utah chilling hrs per day. In Nov and Febr about 16 hrs a day. So that figures out to about 480-570 hrs per month or 2100 hrs for the winter if needed.