Please post cherry related stuff here only.

It doesn't look like I'll be harvesting much or any of the sweet cherries, the fruit flies got them, ..if its not this its that!

Anyone help my id this cherry.

Trees 40 plus years old.

Yeloow flesh. Sweet. Very sweet with touch of tang and the more red the more sweet . Crisp like a bing but always yellow somewhere on outside

. Varies in amount of red blush but my tree is sparse so they see lots of sun. Photo on inside to follow.

Looks like Rainier

a better place is to show this in fruit & orchard, here in the far north zone not too many grow sweet cherries.

Thanks I have it posted there as well.

I know of two yellow cherries. Rainer and Queen Anne/royal Anne. Any idea differences?

Well... did a little reading, Rainier is the better/larger cherry and can keep better in the fridge, if it can keep 2 weeks it's probably Rainier, if only 2 / 3 days it's Royal Ann, since you have a old tree it could possibly be Royal Ann because it's a much older cherry taken from France by Napoleon to America. Rainier was bred in 1952,..usually it takes another 10 years or so when people get to know another cultivar, especially then when not heaving internet.

When I was a kid in Switzerland I had a passion climbing this HUGE tree with similar fruits, no one knew the name but now I probably say it was Royal Ann, no fridge in those years but fresh from the tree it was a Joy! Birds seem to stay away a little because of the lighter color but eventually they found them all.

Great info thank you. Considering I had to cherries sit in my car for four days and they were still great I'm going to say Rainier.

I wonder how many other types of those yellow cherries there is. I got a batch the other day fresh from farmers market and they have a bit of a sour taste.

I was looking at Rainier in Costco but went for the the black ones, think Lapins, $10.00 for a 3lb box. Rainier was more money and didn't look that good. I put netting on mine today..turning red.

Same experience last week Matt when I was at a farmers market. They said they were Queen Anne. More yellow than red and more soft.
Mine are sweet with a bit of a slight bite right at the end but it's subtle. Similar to some plums (but subtle and pleasing).

I also think that they (Queen Anne and maybe Rainer) may be harder to gauge when ready and if I remember correctly they have a short window of ideal ripeness.
My grandfather had Rainer grafted to bing and a QA next door (which used to hang over the fence :).
Love bing. Very fond memories of early July picking and being in cherry comas!

Banking on Rainer. Been in the fridge (only because I forgot) for almost two weeks. Still firm. Still great!

Lapins ripening, looks like some I can harvest soon..

Wahoo! Exciting.

Just a handful of Vandalay picked today...good crunchy refreshing!

Have you ever seen a full crop of sweet cherries in Alberta before ? Just wondering if anybody has done it before

Yes...here it is!

Lapins

Another first one for me...a seedling sweet cherry tree, small but delicious.

That's pretty sweet Konrad

did you bottle feed them heat in the spring at all or protect them ?

Do you protect them through winter ? I found my lapins and Stella's I tried 6 years ago were so easily killed by winter here. I think it was the drastic winter temp swings we get here. You guys are way more steady temps in winter. I found the peach varieties I tried hardier than Stella. I don't think the lapins I had got a fair chance . Will these grafted take on plum trees ?

I think cherries are best grafted in summer onto another tree. T budding in late July or August with new growth and hopefully they heal and sprout in spring.

However...I successfully grafted compact Stella and Rainer to two rootstock (colt) using chip budding. Because they like to callous at 20c I kept my rootstocks inside and close to a grow light which works well in march because I'm starting veggies for the garden.

I'll see if I have photos. Are you thinking of grafting to a rootstock or a tree?

Budding doesn't work that well for me here . I'm thinking of trying some sweet cherry onto plums if that works.i have a lot of space on a plum tree that doesn't produce much plums. I could graft sweet cherry onto my Evans but I'd probably just loose track of what's what.and my Evans isn't in a great spot.raineer and Sandra rose are my favourite cherries I'm wondering if there is any plums they can be grafted to. Or even to rootstock suckers off a Mariana 2624 or mustang plum. From my understanding these rootstocks do have cherry genetics in them like a cherry plum.

In chronological order.

Not sure if those would graft over but not I could be wrong. I've heard that they (cherries to plum) may callous and live a couple years but may not produce. It may be situational and specific.

I tried grafting cherries to golden gage and they looked like they were taking but ultimately died. Maybe Konrad can chime in.

Yeah...plum I wouldn't use, prunus maackii sometimes works, lots grown around here in front yards for the showy bronze bark... hardy stock and used in Alaska for sweet cherries, Evans is better I found.

This Sandra Rose I put onto Evans this spring, (bark graft).

No bottle feeding another cherry branch for pollination the Lapin if that's what you mean, Lapin is self fruitful. No winter protection at all, sometimes it freezes down which keeps the tree manageable lol.

Konrad, is that seedling sweet cherry a yellow fleshed? Not sure if the ones your shared are ripe or ripening. For a seed you planted?

Yes...yellow/orange fleshed, ripe as it shows here, not sure which seeds I used years ago from store bought cherries,..most of this tree will be grafted over, too small for my likings.

Today I ate 2 Rainier cherries out at the orchard which I grafted about 7 years ago onto pin cherry growing naturally along the bush, not sure what did the pollination since this is the only sweet out there..perhaps sour cherry? I'll have to grow out the seeds!

I had rainiers from the store recently. Hands down the best cherries I've ever eaten.

Awesome stew_5a!!! Love it

konrad. Do you have more Rainer? Can you cut one open and photograph it? Rainer is such an ambiguous name and most farms/resellers say Rainer/Queen Anne. Same difference.

I'd like to see what a true Rainer looks like and I trust you and your knowledge/opinions. Thank you!!

i did graft a Rainer this year to colt but will be a few years before I have results!!

Sorry Globell...in my tummy yummy! It had a typical Rainier taste with fairly firm flesh which seems typical for these...but I'm no expert in both.

Konrad all your experiments with sweet cherries is going to pay off with global warming happening. Maybe you will have a sweet cherry orchard in northern Alberta!

I discovered a very old large cherry tree loaded outside my job site today in down town Calgary. I am going to take some photos and pick some fruit tomorrow as the thing is loaded.

Today I picked the last ones..Skeena, not very many but I found these to be the best tasting..well, I could ripen them longer without splitting, ..less rain lately.

Thanks! Skeena is on my order from PICO list!

After seeing Konrad's success with Lapins cherries... well I just had to get a tree! Bought one at CTire yesterday 60% off, 10 gallon pot and looking healthy. Hoping it will do OK in the chinook zone (near Lethbridge, AB). Will keep you posted next spring!

Good...I spent about 5 years in Lethbridge.

So windy though .wonder how ripe fruit hangs on trees .calgary is windy but Lethbridge is on a different level

How is everyone sweet cherries doing? My brother in law(calgary) is planning to replace their Evans cherries with sweet varieties (combination tree of vans/bing/lapins). I am leaning towards grafting lapins and other varieties to Evans sour cherries. But his wife hates the Evans (too sour) and willing to take a chance on planting a sweet Cherry tree.

Evans is pretty sour to eat fresh, I do believe it is meant as a pie cherry. Pie made from the Evans is heavenly, way better than bought pie filling.

All of mine...Vandlalay, Skeena and Lapin are flowering. It's been said...sour cherries have greater health benefits then sweet cherries.

I have 2 Lapins in the ground in my most sheltered area, 1 lived and 1 died & no blooms. I'm in a low area so get a couple of degrees or so colder than local forecast. Locally it hit around -32C this winter so I got a few degrees colder than that. So I'm sticking to pot growing sweet cherries and peaches (other than Madison peach which I tied down and covered with success). My potted Lapins was loaded with blooms and looks like a good crop coming on it. I added a Kristen (Whiffletree) & Royal Ann (Home Depot) on dwarf rootstock to pots this spring. The Ann had a few clusters of blooms so shall see if I get a taste of it.

My Lapins overwintered just fine however smokebush, most of the lavender did not. Wisteria is slowly pushing out buds... so will have to watch closely next few weeks or so. I'm surprised the other stuff died as I had successfully overwintered them a few years already. The Lapins on the other hand did just fine, not even tip kill - though I had no expectation of it surviving...

This been the 3rd. mild winter with around minus 33C. At these temp. the flower buds get killed off...it must have been slightly colder then last winter because I had more blooms last year, about 2/3 of the flower buds on the Lapin are dead.

From today, Lapin...some branches look pretty good...I'll let them hang a little longer to get darker. Less cracking then last year due to dryer condition.

Skeena I picked.

How many did you get Konrad. Only thing I'm missing is sweet cherries from my mini orchard

Super impressive by the way

Not many....just a few branches.

Some parts of the city can grow them allot better...Bernie told me about a tree in Edmonton...

One of my clandestine horticultural contacts lives just south of downtown
Edmonton and sent a photo of his 12 year old Lapins taken today, July 8.
He lives just up the hill from the Muttart conservatory, so the cold
air goes downhill away from him. Also he is in about the best possible
microclimate as all the big downtown buildings act as giant radiators
and warm the coldest winter temperatures a few degrees. His tree is on
standard rootstock, and is about 15-20 ft. tall. He has not had
temperatures below -32C, the limit for Lapins, for several years. This
tree did suffer some winter damage for a couple of winters years ago,
but has recovered.

This is the second year of a big crop. So yes, it is possible to grow sweet
cherries in Edmonton under ideal conditions and location, at least
until a winter colder than -32C hits the location. Lapins is also self
fertile, so that helps with pollination.

Bernie

I am going to try black gold and white gold cherry trees this next year as they are suppose to be hardier than Lapins. Working on getting Gold which is suppose to take -38F for 2019

I put on Gold last year, it grew good but for some reason didn't grow this spring, it pushed a little then stopped/kaput! I did several emergency grafts and got one going again. Not sure what happen, The stock was alive right up to the graft where new stock branches grew out from there, it seems winter damage, the first winter is the toughest since the wood is thin.

That's frustrating! Where did you get the scion for Gold? I couldn't find any so getting it custom grafted by Whiffletree this summer for spring 2019.

I've been trading with Hardy nursery in Quebec for some years now and they just grafted it last year also, Eric was willing to give me a stick...don't think they have much to share, Whiffletree have it for longer.

Here is my potted Lapins. The branches are bent way over and Magpies stole some fruit before I got it netted.