Perhaps this has already been around? I don't know...
Are there any good people-eating cherry trees for central TX? Are there any that are sweet?
Are they invasive?
Cherries
indirt, I've heard of carnivorous plants but not people-eating plants, they sound pretty terrifying! lol
Sorry, I couldn't resist, and I have no idea.
LOL - I had no idea what I was writing! Thanks for clarifying!
A tree nursery owner who is a friend of ours has given up on growing cherries in Central Texas. He thought the roots got too warm and tried deep mulch, but the trees died. My sister had a cherry tree in Amarillo thirty years ago, but I have not seen any others. I think the weather has warmed too much since then. Back then we had four seasons. I don't miss the harsh winters, but I hate the extreme summers.
Sour (pie) cherries are the only cherries recommended for Texas and only for the most northern part of the Texas Panhandle. The chill hour requirement for sweet cherries is not met in Texas. Sustained cold weather between 32º - 45ºF is difficult to achieve. Prolonged warm spells also throw a monkey wrench in the chill hour calculations. Since the fruit matures in late spring and early summer, chances are that the early blooms would be killed by frost.
Indirt-
I have a big beautiful 'bing' cherry tree. It sets fruit every year, (and then drops it, prematurely).
I thought it was because it got too hot, but then I later learned that it needs another cherry tree's pollen to set (and keep) fruit.
The two cherry trees would have to bloom at, or around, the same time.
I'd really like to give my cherry tree a mate, but I'm just out of room for any more trees. Our garden is too "dark" as it is...hard to grow things in the dark!, lol...
Even without fruit, it is a really pretty tree, with great bark. And, the flowers in Spring are just gorgeous.
Stark brothers is a great source for fruit trees, and has a list of cherry trees for sale, including the chilling hours, and compatible pollinators, listed for each one.
The one that I'd need for my bing, would be a very tart/sour one, so just not willing to give up the space for another tree, that is sour...
You are a zone cooler than I am, so you'd have even better luck, than I have had.
Ü
-T
All the reports and people I talk too say that cherry trees will grow in my area San Antonio. However, if I really want the fruit and not just the tree then I would have to provide a decent home, i.e........ potted and controlled growth. I had planned on buying two trees and dwarfing them via pruning this year but ran out of finances and space. Wish I could help better with info.
Most if not all cherry trees are not self pollinaters so you have to plan on at least 2 trees. Like Blueberries they are.
calvin
Thanks for all your info.
I have been surprised at all the apple trees people have here - apples more than cherries need the chill time and air flow.
Here we might be zone 7, but we are in a drier zone than DFW and I am sure, IF I could get a cherry to grow here, it would have to be watered. I really think the only reason DFW is a warmer clime is the cement and reflective buildings spread out everywhere:)
Thanks for the tips. Now I know where to start a little science experiment....
trial space is not a problem.
Indirt you might want to check with Womack Nursery in Deleon. They have trees that are suited for Texas. A couple of years ago I bought a cherry/plum cross and a Plum/apricot cross from them. I only had a couple of plum/apricot fruit this year but did not get to try them as the squirrels beat me to them. Trees look great so I am hoping to get fruit from both of them this next spring. I do not remember if they had just the plain cherries or not.
Patsy
Thanks patsy - I will check them out.
I am about a year too late on the GOOD people-eating cherries, but I am looking at the sep/oct 2007 issue of Texas Gardener. They have a large article about new varieties of sweet cherries, some of which are self fruitful and some need a pollinator. I found this forum trying to find out who sales the varieties listed in the mag. If still interested, some varieties you might research chill requirements and stuff on are: Stella, Lapins, [Minnie Royal, Royal Lee, only require 400 hours and pollinate each other], [Brooks, Tulare, Utah Giant require 800 hours], Black Tartarian 700hrs, Early Ruby rated at 600hrs but bloomed in Houston with only 400hrs. Zaiger's Genetics, L.E. Cooke Nursery have patents on some of these. If you find these varieties, I think you need to tell the nursery your Zone and soil type as there are several different rootstocks mentioned also. EMLA-COLT or COLT is one rootstock. Take care, Mike
Mike, I read the article the Texas Gardener and really got excited until I tried to locate the varieties mentioned. Without success, I must add. I sure hope they become available in the near future.
Hi bettydee, I just found Orchard of Lafayette has several of these and they have Colt root-stock. Their phone number is 925-284-4474. They seem to be high priced for 18" trees, but if we cannot find anyone else selling them, could be worth it. Gonna look some more. Take care, Mike
CHERRIES $29.95
Semi-Dwarf on Colt*
____1634 Bing
____1677 Black Tartarian
____3362 Lambert
____3371 Lapins
____6928 Minnie Royal*
____4037 Rainier
____10099 Royal Lee*
____4619 Stella
____4928 Utah Giant
____4940 Van Linden Nursery 801-796-8576
Getting better by the minute. Trees of antiquity has them for $22.95 http://www.treesofantiquity.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=41_12
Willis has a few, not sure what root-stock though, and a choice of size and price. 866-586-6283 4-5' Seedling (Shipping December 2007)
$5.95
3-4' (Shipping December 2007)
$24.95
4-5' (Branched) (Shipping December 2007)
$39.95
6-7' (Fruiting Size) (Shipping December 2007)
$79.95
8-10' (Shipping Jan '08 - Instant Orchard!)
$119.95
I think I will probably buy them from Peaceful valley Farm Supply 530-272-4769 If I understand there web-site, they sale 4'-5' for $19.95 with discounts when buying 5 or more. They are selling $100.00 gift certificates for $90.00 until Dec 22. http://www.groworganic.com/fallcat/n/0048.html
I looked up their website and love that they include the number of chill hours required. Many nurseries don't do that, but I think I'll go with Trees of Antiquity. I have ordered from them before and DG's Garden Watchdog gives them a 98% as opposed to Peaceful Valley's 89%. Thanks for the information. When they arrive, I'll post info on their condition.
Good idea, I am going to the watchdog now.
We ordered from Raintree Nursery a few years ago and were very pleased with the big, healthy pluot trees we received. However, their Watchdog rating is not the best. I would order from them again with no hesitation. They do offer several of the cherries mentioned in Texas Gardener. Our pluots are on Citation rootstock and doing very well. http://www.raintreenursery.com/catalog/producttype.cfm?producttype=CHER
Patrob, thanks for that information. I placed a spring tree order from RainTree about two months ago and the two low chill hour cherry trees were not being offered then. I have ordered most of my fruit trees from them and have always been satisfied with the trees and shrubs I get from them.
i can't remember the name of this place but either in lindale or that other town just north of there ( i can't remember anything this morning) there is a nursery that is supposed to specialize in fruit trees for texas. i will see what i can find and get back.
i had read a while back that only the sour varieties of cherries might produce fruit here but just yesterday i bought cherries at walmart that came from chili. does chili have more chill hours than us? anyway i saved all the seeds and thought i might try to plant them to see what happens.
http://www.bobwellsnursery.com/
here is the link to bob wells nursery. good luck.
I had no idea that passifloras produced edible fruit! Thanks for that link to Raintree Nusery, Patrob! Has anyone eaten the fruit?
Yes Chilie gets a lot colder then we do - parts never get warm down by the Antartic.
Low chill sweet cherries are fairly new. They require 400 - 500 chill hours making it possible to grow sweet cherries in Texas. The problem I had encountered until now was obtaining them. I just bought the two varieties from Raintree Nursery. I can't find the other varieties mentioned in the Texas Gardener magazine from a few months ago. One has to consider the kind of soil they will be growing in. Cherry trees are grafted onto a variety of rootstock — some for dwarfing others to protect against soil borne diseases or for specific soil types.
RainTree's sweet cherry trees are grafted onto either citation or mazzard rootstock. Mazzard rootstock produces a full sized tree, but is the one to use if you have sandy soils as it provides protection against nematodes. Citation dwarfs and is best for heavier soils. Cherry trees don't really like heavy clay soils though. Trees on mazzard rootstock will have to be summer pruned to keep them down to a manageable size.
Broncbuster, I have tasted the native passiflora, Passiflora incarnata, which is supposed to be edible. I thought it was rather bland. Maybe the others have more flavor. Unfortunately, they are also more cold sensitive. P. incarnata comes back from the roots every year.
my experience with passiflora eating is that the fruit is good but tart.
Mine are usually hollow by the time i get them, so no luck here.
exactly how many chill hours does each part of texas get?
You need to call the A&M office near you to find out, they will know what trees are best for your area too. They are a HUGE help.
My passi fruit is always eaten by critters before i can get to them so never had one yet!
mitch, are you talking about the agriculture extension office?
mamajack, this link gives you a general idea of how many chill hours different parts of Texas gets. Contacting your local Extension agent will give you a more accurate number.
Keep in mind that these are just averages. A site I visited showed the number of chill hours College Station received over a six year period. It varied by slightly over 200 chill hours between the highest number and the lowest.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/peach/fig1.html
Yes I am - at least mine is tied into TAMU.
bettydee, thank you for that map. that is information i can really use. looks like if i could find a tree that only needs 400 or less chill hrs. that that would be more than fine.
i just talked with bob wills nursery in lindale. they said the stella cherry (only out 4-5 yrs.) ought to do fine in texas and is a sweet cherry.
...and it's self-pollinating!
Stella still needs 500 - 600 chill hours. RainTree Nursery sell two varieties that require 400 - 500 chill hours. A safer bit for the lower half of the state. It's best to go slightly lower to insure a more consistant crop on most years.
lol. betty, we sound like an ad campaign with these nurseries. i don't think bob wills had any other sweet cherry. the ones you are talking about...do they need a pollinator?
You need to stay 100 hours under the number of chill hours in your area - why - you want fruit each year and they will not fruit if you do not get them the right number of hours, so if you want the fruit 100 chill hours underyour normal is what you need to get fruit each year.
Mamajack
The two sweet cherry varieties, Minnie Royal and Royal Lee, that RainTree sells pollinate each other. They sell a total of 4, two of each variety. One set on Citation for heavier soils. The other set on Mazzard for sandy soils. I bought the set grafted on to Mazzard because of our sandy soil. Then I went looking for information on summer pruning. Over the years, I've learned to copy any information I want to keep onto a Word document since websites come and go. I found this somewhere:
Quoting:
Summer pruning can keep cherry trees small
An Oregon State University researcher believes there’s potential to have small, precocious trees on standard rootstocks.
By Melissa Hansen
Is there another way to keep sweet cherry trees small—but still productive and yielding high quality fruit—without using dwarfing rootstocks? An Oregon State University researcher thinks so and is collecting data he hopes will demonstrate it.
Cherry growers throughout the United States are interested in keeping trees small to reduce the need for ladders and create more pedestrian-style orchards. But there are orchard management challenges to cherry trees grown on both dwarfing and vigorous rootstocks.
Trees on vigorous rootstocks, like Mazzard, may take six years to generate a crop and provide a return on investment, explains Dr. Roberto Núñez-Elisea, an Oregon State University researcher based at the Mid-Columbia Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Hood River. Also, Mazzard trees allowed to grow without serious constraints are large, and not conducive to pedestrian orchards. They tend to produce moderate yields instead of heavy crop loads, but do produce large fruit of excellent quality.
While dwarfing, precocious rootstocks produce fruit in the third or fourth year, trees tend to crop excessively, he said, adding that they require skillful crop load and canopy management to maintain adequate fruit size, particularly after the fifth year. Spur, bloom, or fruit thinning is often necessary.
“The challenges of managing sweet cherry trees on vigorous rootstocks include controlling excessive vigor, stimulating production in earlier years, and increasing yields,” he stated in a research report. “On the other hand, the challenges of using dwarfing rootstocks include maintaining adequate wood vigor and leaf-to-fruit ratios to achieve large fruit.”
Middle ground
But what would happen if trees with intermediate characteristics between dwarfing and vigorous rootstocks could be grown?
Núñez-Elisea is studying the use of summer pruning of trees on Mazzard rootstocks to learn if the technique can make a Mazzard tree compact and small, increase precocity, but still produce fruit of high quality. Previous work on young Regina trees on Gisela 6 rootstock showed that summer-pruned shoots produced less vigorous growth and more spurs the following year than shoots that were not pruned.
Initial results show that summer pruning can keep the trees about eight to ten feet tall—50 to 75 percent the size of a normal Mazzard tree. The number of flowers was also increased, he reported.
“There is an effect on precocity,” he said. “With summer pruning, we can produce more flowers.”
But there is a big if that he hopes his research will answer this season.
“Can we make big fruit?” he asked. “Based on the potential crop load and leaf area, my guess is that there is an adequate balance to achieve good fruit size.”
The summer pruning study began two years ago on two-year-old Sweetheart/Mazzard trees planted on a 12 foot by 18 foot spacing, with 202 trees per acre. The trial is located in Hood River at grower-cooperator Tim Annala’s orchard. Núñez-Elisea is comparing growth and precocity of trees managed by different summer pruning treatments that vary timing and severity of pruning cuts. The control trees are managed by the grower-cooperator as traditional steep leaders and pruned during the dormant period. The summer-pruned trees do not receive any dormant pruning.
Results
Núñez-Elisea has already learned that tree size can be managed effectively with the summer pruning, which also encourages precocity. The control trees trained as steep leaders are an average of 11.2 feet tall with a canopy diameter of 9.7 feet, but the summer-pruned trees are half to three-quarters the size of the controls. He also observed that pruning cuts made by heading as compared to tipping produced smaller trees.
Heading is a more severe cut that leaves about one foot of wood after the cut is made. Tipping is considered a lighter pruning cut and removes only eight to ten inches of wood.
Summer pruning also reduced trunk size. The mean trunk cross-sectional area of the control trees was 73 cm2, whereas the summer-pruned trees were between 77 percent and 88 percent of the control size.
Núñez-Elisea also found that the type of pruning cut influences growth. Almost no new growth occurred after heading cuts made in August. Late summer tipping also resulted in no new growth in the same year.
The type of cut and pruning time also influences spur production. Tipping in early summer increased spur production by nearly 50 percent compared to controls and heading treatments, he noted. Heading in late summer produced fewer spurs than the controls.
Fruit quality
The big test now is to see if the shorter Mazzard trees are still productive and yield large fruit.
This season, he will collect yield and quality data from the study, as it is the first year that the trees will bear fruit.
Summer pruning has an added advantage of being done during dry weather, reducing the risk of bacterial canker that can occur from pruning wounds made during wet weather.
Núñez-Elisea added that growers are excited about the potential development of finding a way to use Mazzard rootstock, yet keep the trees small. Dwarfing rootstock can be difficult to obtain from nurseries and is not inexpensive due
to royalties. Dwarfing rootstocks also require intensive management.
He envisions planting densities between 300 to 400 trees per acre, with yields of 30 to 40 pounds of fruit per tree in the fourth year.
Small trees also offer the benefit of being easier to net and cover for rain and bird protection, and there is potential to reduce pitting in the fruit because the shorter branches have less movement.
“There is a huge area regarding summer pruning that we don’t know much about in sweet cherries,” he said, adding that there are many questions about renewal wood, timing, rootstock and cultivar combination, canopy architecture, and such. “But I know that summer pruning works in keeping tree height down and promoting precocity.”
cover
May 15th, 2006
Vol. 57 No. 10
CHERRIES
Bing cherry. Photo by Lance Johnson, Image West Photography, Yakima, Washington. ©2006 No reproduction or display without written permission.
Good Fruit Grower Magazine
105 South 18th Street
Suite 217
Yakima, Washington 98901
Mitch, Mother Nature can be rather fickle. I have several peach and plum trees that require 500 chill hours and one Fuyu persimmon that requires 100 chill hours. Since it started producing, the persimmon tree has always had fruit. The plum 'Beauty' had also produced fruit. The rest bloom beautifully then get knocked down by a late frost. Beauty and the Fuyu produce fruit because they are late bloomers. In Texas, it helps to have late bloomers. My trees are dwarfs so this year if we have a late frost, I'm going to cover them. I've never covered a tree before and don't have anything large enough to cover the entire tree. I think covering just the top may be enough to save the flowers.