For years I have tried to start sweet cherries from seed. I get about a 10% germination rate but the seedlings nearly always have problems, from a total lack of chlorophyll, a partial lack of chlorophyll (variegated white and green leaves, actually quite interesting as long as it lived) missing seed leaves, to seed leaves inside the stem. Only two have survived to be transplanted outdoors, and neither survived transplant.
I decided to try again this year. Of 30 seeds, 3 rooted. Two survived being put in soil. One of the two is perfect, growing normally. The other looks like this.
Only half of each leaf is growing. Wrinkled and twisted, I doubt it will survive much longer. I suspect that the sweet cherries are so inbred they donât know how to survive any more.
Any ideas? Has anyone had any success with seedling cherries?
What is your seed source - ie are you pulling seeds from grafted known cultivars? OR are you acquiring them from a reputable nursery or farm person working with population scale and generational genetics. This will make a BIG difference.
Your soil mix for Prunus spp. - even w just a brief fuzzy glance - imho is too dense. Prunus do no like wet roots - especially when young. More perlite/pumice/drainage etc. FWIW, I use my own custom mixing of a Pro-Mix myceliated bio-fungicide base so I donât have to deal w common shortcomings of the vast majority of consumer grade mass produced mixes. I live way too remote to fill my own soil bays but I make a point to always have granular and dust form of Azomite, Bags of Bio Live for basic potted nutrition, extra perlite and pumice for drainage species and genus specific needs. I then add a combination of plant based composts. I amend accordingly but I do this because I never know how long these plants will be observe in their pots - my Mix will outlast anything you can buy by measures of years. Itâs very important and never uses artificial synthetics which will aid a weak weak arse plant.
Also: starting perennial functional plants from seeds is tireless. Thankless. Often frustrating. BUT the macro time span tells us these efforts are a magical dance. Keep plugging away. I start hundreds of thousands of woody plants from seed every winter. Just began stratifying bags of peat and seeds this past week. It is the good work. I salute your efforts! Keep going!
I also do al lot of perenail seedlings, and my experience is that germination rates and final success rates with perrenials cannot be compared to those with annuals. It is normal. Your little half-leaves cherry may eventually give a good tree even if perhaps slower to grow because less photosynthesis at work.
Just any cherry seeds I can get my hands on. Usually from grocery stores or orchards.
I just moved here. Thatâs my new soil. The apricots and almonds are doing great in it. None of the others are ready yet, although the apples are starting to pop. Previously it has been garden soil that is mostly sand.
Iâm not up to thousands, but I like starting everything I can from seed. I am starting a new food forest in a new area, and I would love to have some cherries. Because of the way seeds have come up in the past I concluded that it must be something genetic. Other trees grow with no problems.
Depends on what you mean. Because they survive a long time perennials are often slower growing than annuals. Which also means they are in the vulnerable âinfantâ stage longer.
I want to be clear as well here: I am merely sharing from my experiences and am in no way attempting to be dogmatic.
I explicitly stay away from grocery store genetics. I might recommend, in the very least, to differentiate/notate/separate so you have an idea of who is doing what and noting any exciting anomalies. Those hybridized clonal Industrial genetics are bred for very specific things and often revert to confused expressions in my experience - negotiating those genetics can often be problematic and can be quite distracting. If you separated, say, small orchard or breeder seed genetics you could advance your first generation selections. Meanwhile, in the hybrid/clonal/grocery department you could do the work of experimentation and âreverting to the beforeâ of overinbred but classic tastes.
Just as an example here: If you are establishing your own so called food forest, maybe you could consider sourcing and starting with the parent genetics of all sweet cherries:
They all can cross. They all are origin genetics of selected and then massively cloned genetics. These could emerge spontaneously in place on your site or biome. You could then select and cross and then clone from your own evolving landrace.
Akin, in a way, to working with TPS and then replanting favored tubers over time. If that makes sense.
Most commercial fruit trees are from scions grafted onto rootstock of a different variety. That is, breeders select on different characteristics for rootstock and scionwood. All the scions (of a specific variety) are basically clones. Even the rootstock is usually propagated by cloning. So if you try to plant a storebought cherry, youâll get something that can produce good fruit but doesnât know how to grow in the ground.
I donât have the experience to really know but I have a suspicion about the âgrafting onto strong rootstockâ thing.
Iâve never planted cherry seeds but lots of apples, pears, peaches, plumbs and grapes. Take grapes and apples for example. Neither one breeds true from seed so the folks who donât want you to plant seeds have that going for them. They can say, âo no donât plant that apple or grape seed, it wonât be any goodâ. That may or may not be true.
Then with the apples and most other trees, not so much with grapes they can say, âeven if it does sprout, it wonât grow on its own roots.â Is that really true? Or is it that since they donât breed true, they have no way of propagating a particular cultivar other than by cloning? Then they throw in the next âcriticalâ step of grafting. Something a small scale back yard grower like me, being completely ignorant of grafting techniques isnât capable of doing.
I suggest that none of that is really true or if so, only on a case-by-case basis. And further that by ignoring it and growing any seed you want, and letting it grow on its own roots and letting them cross and produce more seeds eventually, any tree that really canât live on its own roots will cull itself out of the forest.
It is certainly the case with grapes that many do fine on their own roots. And since they root much more easily from cuttings, they donât need a root stock. Lots of great new varieties (usually patented) are sold that way. I have several right now, just waiting for the patent to expire so I can add them to the ones I clone to sell. I wouldnât mind paying the couple of dollars per plant, but I donât sell enough to afford the yearly fee on top of it.
This is true for most woody fruiting perennials, yes. Cherries, on the other hand, most commonly use a technique called âbuddingâ - and at that âchip buddingâ. This has evolved as the dominant technique because it can be implemented on active and dormant rootstock. Tho, obviously, scion wood techniques are still practiced and used tho (especially for the home orchardist) leas successful. If I had a nickel fo all the improperly executed whip grafts Iâve seen teaching and consultingâŠI could weep. All that effort and time but lack of fine tuned and practiced skilled for naught.
Another important quality of sweet cherries to remember: the vast majority, unlike common sour cherries, are self-incompatible. So to fulfill proper fruit set - and valuing and pushing your breeding work forward - multiple varieties of cherry should be contemporaneously planted. Even as strict pollinators - you could use any wild cherry ala a crabapple to this end.
Iâm sure you could eventually create a cherry landrace from storebought cherries, just that itâs the hard way to go about it, and itâs not surprising Lauren is having a difficult time. I agree about grapes, Iâve rooted lots of cuttings from red and white Frontenacs, maybe totally illegally. (Iâm not selling them, though.)
@Bizarro I love those big store-bought sweet cherries. But my absolute favorite cherries and one of my most favorite fruits period, are the wild ones that grow on giant trees in the eastern part of the country.
If the big, sweet cherries are not self-compatible that leaves just one question, Iâm kind of afraid to ask. Are they even the same species?
Yeah tis the ol Cerasus subgenus we are discussing above âversusâ Padus.
The fun thing with Padus, however, is the chokecherry. Wild black cherry and its bark(s) is just incredible medicine and wild food. Worthwhile companions!
Seed grown trees will absolutely grow on their own roots, and for the most part when they say the fruit wonât be good what they mean is that it may not be commercially viable.
Case 1: A neighbor had a seed grown apple tree in her back yard. Fruit was good, I used it for apple juice and applesauce. Probably not commercially viable, as the fruit wasnât evenly shaped. So did she just happen to have the 1 in 20 000 that isnât a spitter? Unlikely.
Case 2: At my old house I had a grape vine that was an Interlaken Concord cross. Color of the Interlaken, taste and juice of the Concord, ripening habit of the Interlaken. One in 1000 chance? Nope.
Most of the trees were seed grown. Best peaches I ever tasted were from seed grown trees. Apricots, almonds, peaches, apples, but sadly no cherries.
Many plants have a defense mechanism that wonât allow them to accept their own pollen. When you have two cloned trees of the same âvarietyâ thatâs what youâre dealing with. The tree recognizes the pollen as itâs own even though it technically comes from another tree.
I am currently stratifying about 50 seeds of an obscure 1950âs established Iowa orchard grown white peach type. These genetics are very old and were sent to me via friends in the nursery/plant geek fruit explorer realm. I am muy excited about these. If I have germination success I will try and get more seeds to share w yâall.
As an aside back to cherries:
The Hungarians started breeding cherries pretty hard in the 1950s. I believe, they are responsible for upwards to 20-25 marketed cherry varieties (mixed sweet n sour). I completely blew some Hungarian seeds I received last winter BUT it was negligence more than anything. They sprouted incredibly which, in my experience in the perennial realm, is a very good initial sign. I have gone back in-network to discover actual spp. here and am pretty close to getting sent a bag of the fruit to try another run. This convo has catalyzed me to be more attentive this go around.
I have written about them before, but I donât remember where, I have peaches grown from wild trees found (rarely) in my area. I believe they are very old, not the individual trees but in origin. I think they are left over from early colonization of the area perhaps from 200 years ago. They seem to breed pretty true from the parent trees and are self-pollinating. The fruits are a 1/3 the size, maybe just a 1/4 the size of modern peaches and the seed is large. Not much too them except in flavor. One has as much peach flavor as a dozen modern peaches put together. They are yellow/pink on the outside and nearly white on the inside.
I plant them by putting three or four seeds under a big rock or board as soon as they mature. I go out early the next spring and move the rock. Sometimes none come up, so I put the rock back and move it again the next spring. More come up the second year than the first. I donât usually get peaches because they tend to bloom when it still too cold for bees to be active. And the stupid squirrels love them before they are ripe.
I only get some about one in three or four years, but they are a treat worth waiting for.
This is the way @MarkReed. I LOVE this mentality and intention. That flavor is a time warp of so many historical lineages. The Iowa peaches from what I understand share a similar likeness but with might end up being more flesh, smaller pits, and apparently super duper flavor. We shall see tho, like your peaches yonder, they share a similar likeness of true to type seedlings.
Historically, all these fruit ancestors arrived via the Sephardic Jews and Spaniards as they came up Mexican Valleys and crossed into this massive landscape of the SW. I am somewhat sure these share similar parentage.
