I've been hearing,..more people say that Cupid is best,..largest of all sour cherries, 6.5 gr. but moderate producer. Juliet would probably be my first pick because it's a better producer, taste is one of the best also. Both are hardier then then Carmine Jewel.

Here is a link that might be useful: Romance' Series

2014 Winter damage on Carmine Jewel. Of the 6 bushes, damage ranged from 10% to 40%. If Juliet and Cupid are hardier, I need to find a source and get a few.

{{gwi:784133}}

northernmn: I may be off on this in your case, but your picture of what seems like vigorous one-year wood reminds me that for the hardy cherry trees (SK's and Evans) not to lose their winter-hardiness, they should be grown on moderately fertile soils, not rich soils, should be fertilized only once per year, if at all, and only in spring, and should not be watered in late summer, so that the wood hardens off for winter,

R

I would also add to check closely for vole damage, with the branches near the base of the bush it can be hard to see. On mine they had a nest area among the branches and only chewed near the centre leaving the outer shoots alone, now there is fungi present in parts of the base. Wayne

Wayne, My CJs are single stem until they are 2 or 3" out of the ground and then they start branching. I did look for vole damage and didn't see any.. I'll probe a little deeper to see if there is anything. My guess is not. After the 1st frost in the fall, I have a major vole poisoning campaign.

Ron, I don't fertilize my CJs and the ground there is only moderately fertile. That's probably why they are growing so slow! I do think that you may right about it being a hardening off issue.

There were several late fall rains and the ground was fairy wet. I probably compounded the problem because I have 2" to 3" deep wood chip mulch around the plants. The chips kept the ground moist and I think that they slowed the root cooling process. The chips may have acted like a blanket and kept the ground at the roots from freezing soon enough. I don't think that the ground was frozen very deep when the -30 F hit. If I continue to use the wood chips at all, they will be pulled way back from the plants in late October.

Based on other damage in the fruit patch, I am really thinking that the wood chips caused a lot of the problems. It seems that the chips retard the hardening off process.

Looks like the trees are way too pampered in your nice weed free garden.
Agree with Ron,...too much one year growth, = too much winter kill. As I said in your plum thread, borderline hardy trees can be helped by letting grass grow in and don't even cut it. It helps to even out temperature fluctuation, less growth, can keep light frost out. This method has helped me harvesting Evans cherries.

twrosz - I've been told that Juliet, Cupid and Crimson Passion are the sweetest to eat off the bush. I have them all planted a couple years ago, so I've very eager to find out for myself! I also planted Romeo, because I read it produces heavily and is great for processing.

I'm pleased that I'm not the only one finding these cherries to be EXTREMELY slow to start producing. This year I think only half of them flowered much, and so far I can't see any setting fruit. Last year I got ONE cherry! One! And the worst part was, while I was waiting for it to ripen, a stinking bird ate it! Argh! I'll have to cover them with netting for sure once they start producing. Good to know there isn't something wrong with them and I just need to give them another couple years.

My cupids going into 5th summer from seedling at full blossom just now setting

My cupids going into 5th summer from seedling at full blossom just now setting

{{!gwi}}

Great blossoms on these Cupids..hopeful fruit set is great also.

Most likely these are not seedlings,..you put them in as plugs,..tissue grown. Seedlings make inferior plants.

LOL, I was reading further up on this thread and realized that I posted twice, a couple months apart, about how I'm happy I"m not the only one waiting impatiently for the U of S cherries to mature and bear heavily. Tee hee. Whoops.

Apparently misery loves company. ;)

Wow, what a lot of blooms! Mine certainly don't look like that!

Yah, it's kind of strange. I hold out so much hope for the UofS cherries -- surely 60 yrs of breeding has to have come up with something wonderful?! Yet so far... after 3 summers in the garden, I've only had one year (year 2) where I got a cup or so of cherries from Cupid. Other than that it's been at best a couple of cherries from random bushes, low down where the slugs get to them before I do. Yet my Evans cherry, put in a year earlier, has produced at least a cup of cherries every year.

This year it looks like I will get at least some cherries from each of the 4 UofS varieties (though I realize a lot can go wrong over the next 6 weeks). Meanwhile, the Evans is setting a much heavier crop than probably all 4 UofS cherries combined. I know Konrad often speaks of the heavy set of Evans, and I really want to believe that the UofS varieties are better, but 4 years in and there's no doubt that the Evans has been much more reliable so far.

Well, I had to wait 10 years for my Ure pear to start producing, maybe I should be more patient.

how old were your cherries when you planted

To: don555
RE: Carmine Jewel Cherry Tree
Posted by don555 3a (My Page) on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 2:36
- Initial comment1 (excerpts)â¦I hold out so much hope for the UofS cherriesâ¦so far... after 3 summers in the garden, I've only had one year (year 2) where I got a cup or so of cherries from Cupid. Other than that it's been at best a couple of cherries from random bushesâ¦. Yet my Evans cherry, put in a year earlier, has produced at least a cup of cherries every year.â¦Meanwhile, the Evans is setting a much heavier crop than probably all 4 UofS cherries combined. I know Konrad often speaks of the heavy set of Evans, and I really want to believe that the UofS varieties are better, but 4 years in and there's no doubt that the Evans has been much more reliable so far.
- Reply1: My understanding was that both SK cherries and Evans cherries are expected to start producing fruit after three or four years; probably four if small plugs are planted. But such are just averages and should not be expected every time by everybody. I am just happy when my plants look healthy and I tend not to make comparisons with what other people get when they are. I'm just interested in the long view.
And full maturity of Evans and SK cherries is not reached until maybe seven years (on average). I once picked 15 quarts off an eleven-year-old Evans, and neighbours have picked 22 litres (US quarts) off a seven year old Evans. So, perhaps the waits and small crops you have experienced so far are just what you should expect; with much more production to happen in the future.
Here, in zone 3, northern Ontario, Canada I think some Evans trees had trouble with the severe winter we just had, while the SK's shrugged it off. But my cherry trees are all too young to be drawing general conclusions from. My Carmine Jewel probably had a few cherries first at age four, and so is producing for probably the fifth or sixth time this year, with a pretty good crop expected.

- Initial comment 2: â¦had to wait 10 years for my Ure pear to start producing, maybe I should be more patient.
- Reply2: My Early Gold pear flowered several years in a row without producing a single pear until the year when the Ure grafts I put onto it flowered too. From then, for several years, I had both varieties producing fruit, as they were cross pollinating each other. This year though, the Ure did not flower, due to winter damage to its fruit buds I am sure, and so again I will have no pears of either type because no cross-pollination could occur. Although other growers sometimes claim that they get pear production from solitary pear trees, I am convinced that Ure and Early Gold, probably Golden Spice and other hardy pear varieties, require cross-pollination to produce fruit.

My Carmine Jewel has very few fruit setting this year so next year should be heavy barring weather. I should be thinning in heavy set years but could not be bothered. Like Konrad had stated the weather was not good at flowering time, plus winter kill on flower buds. I also had heavy winter kill on Nanking cherry buds. Just a thought here, could a person say that where Evans does good Sask. cherries don't and visa versa or am I off base!!!

My Carmine Jewel has bloomed heavily for the past two years and appears to set fruit, however on the first warm day each June the small fruit turn red and drop. Visually the tree looks great with lots of growth, no critters around and no die back. Any ideas?

Ronlewis, I realize I'm impatient, so it's good to hear that you have been getting good production from your CJ. Hopefully I will get the same, soon.

I find the SK cherries to be very different than any other fruit tree or bush I have grown. Normally it takes a few years for trees to start flowering, but once they start flowering they start producing fruit. My SK cherries, put in as 2' or more tall potted plants and now 5'-7' depending on the variety, have flowered well every year since I planted them. But as Ryan notes above, turning those flowers into fruit has been frustrating. My plants appear quite healthy, I've not had any issues with late frosts, no winterkill, lots of bees and other pollinators around during flowering, but almost no fruit. This year it looks like I will get a small amount of fruit from all 4 SK varieties, but I find the lack of turning flowers into fruit frustrating. For example, here's a pic of my Romeo cherry this May, with lots of blooms. Now it has just a handful or a few of fruit developing.

Whereas my Evans, which has flowered every year since 2011, has produced fruit every year since 2011. That makes sense to me -- once it starts flowering it starts bearing fruit, and more flowers equals more fruit. Here's the kind of set I'm getting on it... if only the SK cherries would do the same!
{{gwi:784138}}

This post was edited by don555 on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 4:33

Kind of a double post... edited the one above, can't figure out how to delete this one which commented on my original error above...

This post was edited by don555 on Sat, Jun 28, 14 at 4:35

Don, the picture of your Evans is more like what my Carmine Jewel can do but all the fruiting tips generally will die back or be very weak after a fruit set like that. The Evans that I ripped out would grow very big leaves but not flower, I have not fertilized either one because they generally put on plenty of growth each year. I moved a sucker from the C.J. and might do a couple more to see how they do in other parts of my yard. I have gumbo, loam and then a mix from landscaping close to the building.

the Romance series are listed as self pollinating.Evan's are self fruitful .For me it seems fruit set is heavier in the romance series when there is bloom over lap with Evans.Anyone grow Rose cherries?I was wondering about their bloom time and their possible use for cross pollination with the romance series.

While the Evans and the SK cherries are listed as self-pollinating (self-fruitful means the same thing, right?), I've read that they will produce bigger crops when cross-pollinated, which I think you can now vouch for. Here they all bloom at the same time most years; but the Evans bloomed later than the others this year, a year in which apple leaves and blooms were delayed my several weeks here.

self pollinating set fruit but greatly benefit from another pollen source self fruitful set fruit heavy with no other pollen source so no they are not quite the same

SK cherries shedding more and more of the cherries that I'd hoped would make it through to maturity. Getting PO'd with these guys. I'm still hopeful to get at least a few cherries from all 4 varieties, but if not, how long to continue? It's been 4 years so far... maybe give them 2 more years before re-evaluating their place in my garden? If they haven't produced heavily by then, probably time to cut-bait.

Argh, that really sucks, Don. What the heck makes them abort their fruit?! Not enough water at the right time? Too much? Not hot enough? Too hot?

You would think that with them having been trialed for years at U of S, they must be ABLE to get lots of fruit. But what are we doing wrong?

What worries me greatly, but am not really sure about, is that the problem of cherry trees' aborting fruit may be a disease. I cannot say that the trees exhibit all the symptoms described in various related internet articles, many of which articles are about sweet cherries. But these articles, along with the descriptions of problems people have told me about, plus my own observations over last year and the start of this year, and not the reports surfacing in this forum, have me very apprehensive. I have seen the disease named variously, in internet articles, as 'Cherry Buckskin', 'X-Disease', and 'Little Cherry Disease', a virus (viruses?) spread by leaf hoppers, and possibly spread from wild chokecherries. I am just conjecturing here. I do not have much evidence, have not pursued the topic scientifically, and may not even have my facts straight, but it is worrisome. So I hope somebody can contribute some wisdom in this area; it would be particularly interesting to hear from those prairie farmers and others who planted orchards of Evans and SK cherries in recent years.
I have attached a link to a brief article on Cherry Buckskin disease, because the picture reminds me of what I am seeing on my trees, and I wonder if it is what others are seeing too. But otherwise my cherry trees seem very healthy in all other ways. I do have chokecherries bordering my property, however.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cherry Buckskin Disease..

I am sure what don is experiencing is just the waiting for his trees to mature.I think that next year will mark better years to come.He has everything in place and all he needs is time.

I got the series as puny little guys from DNA Gardens, that was something like ten long years ago. They grew and had thrived up until this past winter, well most had shrugged off the terrible winter, while a few are half dead. The largest tree is a big honking thick full wide bush of 8 ft tall ... though, problem is we'll be lucky to harvest even a small bowl of cherries from it. I do not have a lot of space to dedicate to fruit growing and with all the time that has passed, instead we could have been harvesting bountiful apples and possibly even some plums. I will leave the most healthy trees, though if these soon don't kick into gear I'll be replacing them with other fruits.

This post was edited by twrosz on Fri, Jul 4, 14 at 18:11

Fruit set was a major problem with all fruits this year, even some apples have suffered, mostly Norkent and Sept. Ruby, some of the Evans Cherries are still aborting now,..at flowering time it was too cold, [my conclusion]. I don't think out in the prairies they have it much better.

We'll have to comfort our self's with raspberries this year!

Fascinating discussion. I don't know what's going on with these guys, but SOMETHING just doesn't seem right. The disease hypothesis is an interesting one... no obvious disease symtoms on any of my bushes but I won't discount the possibility.

It certainly can't be lack of pollen. I have 4 varieties of SK cherries planted in a row and all of them have bloomed in each of the past 4 years (sometimes lightly, sometimes heavily). And there are 3 other Prunus within 20' of the SK cherries (3 plums, including 2 wild plums). I also have an Evans maybe 50' away that bloomed well also. Not all of these overlap on bloom time, but enough do that there is considerable overlap, and the SK cherries are supposed to be self-pollinating anyway. This year I watched lots of bees and other insects at the flowers, and the plants didn't bloom until weeks after our last frost.

After flowering, most blossoms just fell off, but many started to develop small cherries. After a few weeks, some of these small cherries dropped off, while many others began to grow in size quickly -- these were the ones I expected to be harvesting in August. Now about 3/4 of those bigger ones have fallen. Meanwhile, on the Evans sour cherry tree, all of the ones that originally started to grow in size quickly are still growing and look very healthy.

If Terry has 10 year old, full-size bushes that still aren't producing, something just isn't right here. Maybe I'll try contacting the breeders to see if they have any insight...

This post was edited by don555 on Fri, Jul 4, 14 at 2:18

Konrad, my September Ruby flowered heavily and set very well, just finishing the "June drop" now, looks like I might have to thin the remaining apples to prevent too heavy a crop. Same for my apple-crab. Also this was the heaviest fruit set on my young Evans cherry by far this year (of it's 5 years of fruit production). There might have been some tough conditions in the country this spring, but in the city it was pretty good for everything. Except the SK cherries.

My cupids had a good bloom set last year going into their 4th summer but failed to set fruit.This in their 5th summer they had heavy bloom set and a good fruit set.Of 180 cupids they all showed this same trait .My Juliette in their 4th summer had OK bloom set but fruit set is limited all 360 showing this same trait.

Goldenheights, that's interesting, and with so many trees you get rid of the risk of a possible oddball bush like I may have with just one of each variety. How large are your bushes now? My Cupid is about 5'.

My trees looked like they set fruit well this spring, but now it seems to have stopped getting bigger, then turns yellow and falls. Here's a shot of my cupid today... one of the 4 cherries in this photo still seems to be growing, the others will soon fall.
{{gwi:784141}}

Here's a shot of my CJ... the cherries are mostly still green and healthy looking, but they do seem to have stopped growing and I fear they will soon yellow and fall.
{{gwi:784144}}

By comparison, here's my Evans today. Cherries are much larger. Some have stopped growing and are withering, but nothing like on the SK cherries.
{{gwi:784147}}

This post was edited by don555 on Fri, Jul 4, 14 at 15:36

My cupids started out the year at about 6ft and I expect them to finish this year 7 to 8 ft.I expect my Juliette to be about the 6ft mark by fall.Last year I was in in the same position as you wondering why.I did find literature from the U of Saskatchewan that said this fruiting behavior was to be expected.

Okay, thanks, guess I'll have to stop dwelling on it and give them another year.

Meanwhile, at the Devonian Botanic Garden today, this litte 2' or 2.5' Juliet bush had this kind of fruit set when exposing the inside of the bush...
{{gwi:784150}}

{{gwi:784153}}

It could have had some winter damage outside, or, sheltered, [inside low when flowering] kept the cold out and fruit set was better.
I visited a friend about 12 min. north west of the Devonian Garden, the HUGE Evans bush was flowering but about 0 fruit set, same with Juliet.

Outside the City it is soooo..important to plant these in a very sheltered spot and on high ground.

Carmine Jewel fruit is starting to colour up now. Wow, so tiny, I was expecting them to get twice as big as they are. In the pic above from July 4 when I said they appeared to stop growing and I was worried that meant they were going to drop, it seems really they were full size and getting ready to ripen. Watering the bush now since it's been very dry and maybe the extra moisture will help the fruit size up a bit or at least not dry up.

This post was edited by don555 on Tue, Jul 15, 14 at 16:00

An acquaintance wrote me today to say how much the Carmine Jewel cherries were enjoyed (for the first time). This is waaaaaaaaay too early.
For any readers of this forum who have not experienced eating a CJ cherry, they will be dark when ripe. Usually CJ's turn a lovely bright cherry red about now; they might even be soft to the touch, and perhaps even yellow inside like an Evans cherry, only seven weeks earlier. Uh, uh! To the cherry-starved this might be a wonderful experience, but wait...at least two more weeks...until the CJ cherries are purple (black) outside and inside, skin and flesh. Only then have they developed their flavour and some sweetness, and are ready to be picked (roughly the first week of August).
CJ fruit left on the tree after they turn purple are supposed to hang on the tree for a long time, sweetening slightly with time. To test this, last year I left my last four CJ's on the tree and they stayed on until I finally picked them in mid-September, before an expected frost. But they only had sweetened up a little during that last month and a half.
If you pick them early, when cherry red, you may be 'bitterly' disappointed (pun intended). For some reason a couple of my Romeo fruit are like that now, while the CJ's are still mostly green (but full-size). Although some people claim to prefer sour fruit, I think you would be missing out if you pick your SK cherries when red (except for Valentine which only gets bright red).

They should end up almost the same size as Evans,..average
4 gr. on the Carmine Jewel, 4.4 gr. on the Evans.

ron, thanks for the tips on when to pick. They are definitely just turning the cherry red colour now. They seem small to me. Here's a photo of my Carmine Jewel, do they get bigger as they turn to red then purple?
{{gwi:784156}}

Here's my Evans today... no red colour but already a bit bigger than the CJ:
{{gwi:784159}}

Question: Posted by don555 3a (My Page) on Tue, Jul 15, 14 at 21:59
ron, thanks for the tips on when to pick. They are definitely just turning the cherry red colour now. They seem small to me. Here's a photo of my Carmine Jewel, do they get bigger as they turn to red then purple?

Reply: I don't have enough experience or enough trees to answer with confidence, but I will offer my impressions anyway. In your second photo where the cherries are green, the fruit look to be about the right size and shape for CJ. But in the first photo where cherries are turning red, the size seems smaller, and the shape seems less elongated, which make me wonder is we are looking at two different trees or even two different varieties in the two photos. The smaller, squatter, half-ripe fruit look like what I am seeing on my Romeo cherry today.
I have not seen Romeo fruit before so I am a bit confused both by your picture and by my tree. The Romeo fruit is supposed to ripen about three to four weeks later than the CJ but to be slightly larger fruit (4.0 g compared to 3.5 g). So not much is making sense right now.
What does seem right, besides the size and shape of the green CJ's in your second photo, is that after an initial period where I wondered if any of my CJ's would be left after many started shrivelling up (as discussed in previous posts by several forum contributors), there now seems to be a good load of CJ's that are starting to change from green to red (without shrivelling up).

Maybe I wasn't clear. The first photo is Carmine Jewel. The second photo is Evans sour cherry. I was expecting CJ to be as big as Evans, but clearly they are not.

I also have Juliet and Romeo ans Cupid. The Juliet and Romeo have small fruit about the same size as Carmine Jewel, but no hint of reddening at all yet so I'm hoping they'll get a bit bigger.

The Cupid has only a few cherries on it but they are much, much larger, some about the size of BC sweet cherries, and the biggest ones are now turning red on the Cupid.

This post was edited by don555 on Tue, Jul 15, 14 at 23:09

don555: I strongly suspect that certain web sites, including some of my favourite YouTube videos, as well as some nurseries and some articles, have mistakes regarding the descriptions of SK cherry varieties. As well, some of us may have made mistakes in our records; I know I have. So, why am I making pronouncements regarding such questions on this forum? First to be helpful, second because the one I am very confident in, the Carmine Jewel, has given me crops maybe six times, and third because we have the U of S descriptions to go by (see attached).
So, in the spirit of getting to the bottom of things, and not because I am a know it all, I offer the following comment:
My Carmine Jewel cherries when green look like your green Evans cherries (and perhaps that is what they both should look like, I'm not so sure on this one); but your first photo does not look at all like CJ to me. Maybe the charts I've included will help us identify our SK cherry varieties where there is any doubt.
Sorry that I have lost the source of the attached chart, as I should give credit to the author(s); the source may be either the U of S, or else DNA Gardens I suspect. The link below (?) from Prairie Tech Plant Systems takes us to a chart that contains much of the same information, but only for SK's.

Here is a link that might be useful: Comparison Chart for SK Cherries

This chart is showing even less weight,..3.5 gr. smallest of all cherries, so, this would make sense, in your picture being smaller then Evans.

I'm pretty sure, heaving lots of moisture can pop up cherries, I know that Evans does, usually at ripening time.

This post was edited by konrad___far_north on Wed, Jul 16, 14 at 19:48

Interesting chart, thanks for posting. It matches almost exactly what I'm seeing -- Cupid the biggest, Evans second, Carmine Jewel the smallest, and Romeo just a bit bigger than Carmine Jewel.

Only difference is that perhaps my Juliet should be closer to Evans in size, but since Juliet is still fully green perhaps it still has some growing to do.

Also, I'd like the cherries to overall be a bit bigger, but maybe this dry heat of the past 2 weeks has stressed the plants to produce smaller fruit than I was expecting. Or maybe they'll get a bit bigger as they ripen over the next month or so.

Turns out the Carmine Jewel size did improve as the cherry ripened. Still a small cherry, but that has advantages since it fits perfectly into my vintage cherry-pitter, whereas modern big sweet cherries (and probably Cupid bush cherries) are too big for the pitter to handle.

Anyway, rather than add into this long thread here, I started a new thread over in the Fruit & Orchards forum. Here's the link for anyone interested:

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg0802251010794.html

I’m writing to share my own experience with Carmine Jewel. I write from rural north central
Minnesota roughly a hundred miles south of the Canadian border and a cold Zone 3B. I am
always skeptical of the hype in nursery and garden catalogs, but with CJ the "hype" seems to be true. I’m astounded by the huge cherry crop I have this season on one of the trees that is now in its fifth season after planting as a 15 cm tall “sapling” that I received in a tiny pot. The tree is now a bit over six feet high. I have five other CJs planted about the same time, but the tree I’m discussing is the closest to the house and therefore received the best care including watering during dry periods and spraying for aphids a couple times in previous years. Of the other CJs, three have at least one cherry but nothing like the yield on the pampered tree.

Yesterday I removed the deer fencing that I had encircled the tree with, so that I could weed
around the tree, but after an hour or so, the tree started leaning considerably. Clearly the deer fence had been supporting the tree under its load of fruit. Worried about the tree’s breaking, I attached a rope to the main leader to pull it back into a vertical position.

The catalogs claim that CJs yield 15 lbs of fruit after four years. I am curious about the weight of fruit on my tree, and I estimate it might be 15 lbs, but I plan not to pick the cherries all at once. I’ll eat the fruit fresh as picked from the tree, and I am aware the cherries grow sweeter over several weeks. While many of the cherries are clearly not yet ripe enough to eat, the bright red ones are sweet enough for my taste and seem no more tart than red raspberries. The latter make my teeth hurt but not the cherries. The cherries are small, quite a bit smaller than the Montmorencies I grew when I lived in Washington, but the CJ pits are also smaller.

I’m going to try posting a photo I took yesterday if I can figure out how.

My tree has smaller fruit this year but there is a lot of it and is bending some branches down. The side away from the building bloomed later when it was cold and frosty, those all dropped