Went to a u-pick just a few miles from us. Wonderful U of S cherries and I picked and ate to many. Juliette was the largest and best eating of them all.

Matt...hard to pick Evans/sour cherries with stems, think it will damage next years fruiting spurs, if I do then I cut stems. Ubro...how much they charge for them?

My Evans are loaded also...a little larger then Juliet.

Some Evans still on the trees, getting dark and sweet.. around 14 brix.

How is this possible that there is still cherries. Must be in a shaded area or something. I had to pick mine in last week of July to early August. I did leave a few hanging but the wasps eat them all or damage them

Are cherry maggots an issue here?

I noticed one in a Nanking cherry a few weeks ago. Was wondering if they are common in the Evans, etc.

Been leaving some on longer for years right before freeze up when sugar levels are the highest, trees are in a sunny spot, this picture is from the north side which is more shaded, the south side cherries are a little smaller from shrinking, [more sun].

My Evans were loaded this year. I have about 20 mature bushes so did a U-pick. I just charged $8/gallon or traded for other garden produce, etc. Also had a few loaded Juliet's. I also leave the ones for me till last to pick, but mine did not make it as long as Konrad's this year before they started to shrivel. It has been a wonderful year for fruits.

This is a VERY late reply from me, but for us (about an hour south east of Saskatoon), it was a terrible fruit year! Well...if I had watered more it might have been alright, but it was hot and so, SO dry. I think we also got either a late frost or rainy weather when my cherries were flowering too, so I had a poor crop to begin with, and then a lot of the fruit shriveled before they really looked ready. Hopefully better luck this year!

I once bought a cherry tree that was listed as semi-sweet or something silly and it turned out to be a sour cherry. I waited years for the fruit. I was disappointed. Since then I came to the conclusion that lower than about zone 5 all the cherries you can grow are really just sour cherries - like pie cherries. I'm a bit confused by the some of the posts talking about the cherries getting sweet. Are Evans cherry and the Juliette a sweeter types of sour cherries or are they actually a sweet cherry?

They're all sour pie cherries correct! When they talk about being sweet, that would be a lie or taste bud is out of wack! Sometimes they talk about sugar content, some are higher then others..actually some are about equal to sweet cherries but the high acid makes them taste sour. If you can leave the sour cherries hanging a long time then sugar content will increase, but also by evaporating water content /shrinking ...which then makes them taste sweeter, but many weeks after they're ripe...if you can hold on that long?

Yes, I do understand what you mean. We used to have both sweet and sour cherries when I was just a child. I suppose sour cherries are rather like my red currants that way. Thanks for clearing that up. Actually I still have some sour cherry trees because they dropped a lot of seed and so even though the parent is gone and the deer nibble as high as they can there is still some branches on those trees that have grown tall enough to be out of reach by the outstretched necks. Of course the birds seem to get all my cherries. :)

The 'evans' cherry is supposed to be a sour or pie cherry. There is nothing to suggest growing it on the basis of quality or flavor for eating fresh and straight into your mouth. It has huge merit when it comes to hardiness and production as no other cherry comes close to it.

The picture above is from my Auntie who lives in a sweet cherry farm and she is listing to sell the farm. The two flowers are sweet cherry on the left (removed from another tree) and (compared) to the right: Konrad's grafted strongest evans seedling selection.

I am making a record of this here for scientific reasons in case nobody ever gets back to the farm to see it any more. The right hand stems are long like (ie left side) regular sweet cherry and longer than all van sweet cherries on the farm. Thanks to Konrad's donation, My aunt to allow this graft, and our shared interest to carry on of this cultivar of what Dr. Evans had discovered about 30 years ago at an old farm in Alberta some-place (?-?), we have at least some evidence how seedlings of evans are also very different.

Konrad: of the 4 surviving evans seedlings I am understanding only 2 flowered for me of all the 4 scions you gave me. All 4 grafts should that I have grafted to evans should have flowered by now, the one above flowered for the 2nd time now, and only one other flowered this year with only small flowers even the same size as normal pie cherry. I think I might go back there some day to save some as rootstocks as I have heard these seedlings make productive trees for other pie cherries.

Researchers: Why could these be infertile? Under magnification of the pollen of konrad's evans seedlings, they both look the same type as triploid gisela-5 hybrid rootstock that had volunteered from my previous cherry tree I cut down. Any possible tools out there to count chromosomes?? (the only thing I can provide at the moment are slides of pollen from g-5, evans, evans-1 seedling, and evans-2 seedling, and all pictures made through the microscope eyepiece using my cell phone)

Mary, I do really like Juliet, Cupid, Crimson Passion and Romeo (those are the sour cherries I own; I've never tasted or grown the Evan's cherry) for fresh eating. For me, I'd say I actually probably prefer these sour cherries for fresh eating over the sweet cherry. They can taste plenty sweet for my taste buds, but with a lot of sour tang thrown in. Like a sour candy (I looove sour candies ha ha). But they are certainly NOT sweet cherries! Very different flavour. I think it comes down to personal taste but as much as I love the sour cherry flavour - and think they can be perceived as quite sweet - I would never claim they are truly a sweet cherry. :)

Well this year should be interesting. My freezer is still full of Evans cherries from last summer .

I decided to top work most of my Evans to sweet cherries. Got Rainer,Stella,Sandra rose and lapins.

I hope the grafts take I spent about two hours tonight grafting. The buds on my scions all popped green while in the fridge . I’ve been able to graft plums like this in the past wondering if cherries take easily once the bud has broken green?

Hey guys have any of you tried Stella cherry in Alberta ? Is it as hardy as lapins ?

Yes..at least as hardy...I had Stella for many years on the Evans and had little crops here and there until the tree died..lost it.

Have you ever tried the gesila cherry roots before in Alberta ? There is some Stella’s at Home Depot on this

Think most are on Gisela coming out of BC, I purchased Lapin, Vandalay and Skeena about 15 years ago and still alive..but you need to plant deep, burry the graft!

Not sure that this is the right thread to do this, but I'd like to complain somewhere...

Looks like my cherries are going to be terrible this year! So many flowers this spring, and very VERY little fruit has set. The same goes for all my fruit trees actually. Guess I won't need to worry about covering things from the birds this year...

Still a little early for me to tell what actually will stay on...winter did a number for sure..even if they flower one can't tell until fruits stay...apparently flowers have deformity or missing male/female parts after the prolonged cold and swings in March/April...that's what I hear anyway. So far it seem very little apples for me also..OH..one thing come to mind, we got from deep cold to like summer heat and that really stressed trees which might also be the cause of deformity in the flowers?

Yeah I thought everything definitely seem stressed with that heat wave right at flowering. It seemed like the flowers had hardly opened before they were wilting in the heat. Trying to grow fruit is just a crazy venture, ha ha. Too cold, too windy, too wet, too dry, too hot, too many of this kind of bug, etc. Well my trees are slowly getting bigger..some day I'll get a decent crop!

Exactly! Think we talked about Patterson Pride plum before...a little late in ripening but it might just make it for you, rock hardy and my two trees set pretty good! Prunus Americana and Nigra does a good job in pollination...ups, didn't realize I'm in cherry thread lol.

Konrad I’ve seen this on my trees many times .flowers open and no stigma or misshaped flowers ect that will never pollinate.

And this combination of cold winter until April than super hot weather made it very difficult to graft. Usually I start in April but trees didn’t wake up till May this year bark wasn’t slipping and many of the branches just barely came back so they were dry and very hard to graft plus the added 30 degrees outside made the union dry up before the process was complete making it very difficult.

Still have some wood in fridge . Do you guys think it maybe to late to graft ?

I usually graft up to mid June.

Thanks that was the answer I was looking for :)

Hey Konrad are you noticing it was hard to graft in Earlier May? My trees fought to come back the branches were dry as a bone at tips when I cut them. Had to wait a few weeks to see what actually was alive or dead surprisingly lots of those almost dried tips came back. Doing that in plus 30 was impossible nearly .

Spent almost all day grafting today high of about 12 degrees raining and humid out and birds chirping was amazing day nice and cool for grafting.