Is anyone else on this list growing Surefire pie cherries? I am just getting my first good crop now. I've had the tree for a few years, but I just biocharred it heavily last year, and it seems to like it. I think the cherries are sweeter and better tasting than Montmorency by a little bit. They are the first pie cherry that I've grown that seems to be anywhere near as productive as Montmorency. I am pretty happy with it right now, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else is growing it. It was the first pie cherry released by Geneva NY USDA for 130? years.
JOhn S
PDX OR
Some time towards the end of summer I should visit you for another trial of cherries. They were three distictivey different species of three that time. Only this time I would include prunus maackii, and if for any other reason to see if that's the kind of thing you like. Even though the fruits are incredibly tiny they are intensly rich in antioxidants. The various maackii trees grown as street trees in Alaska drop in the snow and diffuse purple pigments that make street corners look like a blood bath. One drop in a clear glass of water is just as interesting too. However even though some of these trees are less bitter than others the big drawback is still fruit size, and the next problem is lack of survival at Vancouver Washington.
This spring the city planted three prunus yedoensis trees around the corner in east Vancouver that still have cultivar labels listed as 'cascade snow'. They all bore early fruits that are exactly like maackii but much larger fruit up to 3/4 inch. That's the reason why I want to bring maackii fruits back from Alaska for you to try because prunus yedoensis picks very early and survives very well.
John, if you had to vote between 'carmine jewel' and 'balaton' you chose the latter a few years ago. I have had both at other places but have no opinion but I do remember the differences. And it sounds like you have had surefire for a while now so how would you compare it to the balaton?
I noticed that a subsection of my last post a few days ago never lodged so I'll finish it here.
The 'cascade snow' cherries taste like balaton. The prunus maackii (shown as tiny ones) are even more concentrated with enough added in astringency to almost be a chokecherry.
I think it takes about 3 cascade snow cherries to make up as much flesh as an average 1 inch balaton carries but at least the cascade snow has more the balaton like flavor. The picture I uploaded are developing prunus pennsylsvanica and maackii next to a mature seed (being held by wire strippers) of cascade snow. At full maturity the maackii stay tiny from this point on, but the pennsylvanica mature much greater and up to 5/8s of an inch, which is approximately the same for cascade snow.
The breeding program in Saskatchewan should love learning about the seed being held by the clamp because they breed cherries for fast release of the stems and the snow goose is very extra low retention where the stem meets cherry.
I had surefire for a straight few good years of production. I was sad to lose it. It seemed that when you get high production it puts a stress on disease tolerance so it's dead. It was very late flowering and it filled in for bees when nothing was really flowering. It's been 20 years since it died but I still remember figuring out a way to save it but when things get very systemic there's nothing I could have done to save it. I know Cornell wrote a patent on it after I had mine, so all the fruiting characters should be listed inside the patent. I think the patent is past the valid date by now.
Have you found the production of all your cherries pretty consistent yield wise year to year?
Chris
I have not. I only grow pie cherries. I like them fresh more than sweet cherries. They are better for health and athletic recovery, and they have way more flavor.
I decided to biochar pie cherries as one of my top two biochar crops, because they seemed to prefer a neutral soil, and we tend to have very acidic soils here. The difference has been profound. I had grown Montmorency pie cherries for decades. They produced and made me happy. After biocharring, they doubled in production. The quality was better too. I had given a little biochar to my Surefire. It continued to survive and give a few cherries, but was not impressive. Then I biocharred it and it has more than doubled its production this year. The quality of the cherries has doubled too.
JOhn S
PDX OR
It has also had a huge and noted effect on American persimmons, the other fruit that I saw preferred a completely neutral Ph. For the other plants, it seems to have had a positive effect but I can't really specifically attribute it to the biochar, because I"m doing so many other things like compost tea, deep mulching, seeding mycelium, ollas, and a drip system. I'm hoping some of these will have an effect on my pineapple guavas, which were suffering from the heat and drought, but we'll have to see. There are some plants, like my medlars and Asian plums, that I didn't biochar since they were doing so well already. I can't eat any more than that!
John S
PDX OR
John, the amora_potter post is spam, note the word "slope" at end of post (mouse-over-select through and past the visible text to reveal the word)
this word is a link to a computer gaming site.
All dubious posts should be moused over by moderators and deleted if invisible link is present.
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