North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hélène Dessureault <interverbis@videotron.ca>]

On Evans cherry,

I am in zone 3-4. My Evans cherry on its third season produced about 2
pounds of cherry. I made a clafoutis (a french cherry dessert that would be
more like a thick pancake cooked in a deep pie dish). A memorable dessert!

Evans are extremely adapted to cold climate, BUT they appear to have two
faults which are :

They sucker : right now I have about seven new Evans trees about a foot tall
as far away as 10 feet from the tree (quite far as compared to apple trees
for instance).
They are very susceptible to a prunus disease, where the bark splits and
ooze an orange gum. However this disease is easy to control with a sulfur
based fungicide. When I notice signs on the bark, I spray (twice during the
growing season average). Sulphur based fungicide fits the norms applicable
to organic
gardening. In this area, the pin cherries carry the disease. I am thinking
of trying a higher pH to grow Evans, to see if it will have an effect on the
propension to bark splitting. I believe that the Evans was developed in
Saskatchewan, where the soil is clay and more alkaline than here, north of
Ottawa.

Evans have more than one strong point. They are fast growing and comes into
bearing after a year or two.
If you live in an area too cold for most sour cherry, Evans is well
worth the trouble.

The fruits are quite attractive, not too sour for my taste (fantastic when
cooked) and much larger (more oblong than round) than any other type of
cherry available for this area.
More than one picking may be necessary. When I picked the two pounds of
riped cherries, I left another half pound of unriped cherries, still hanging
in the tree, but riped by now. I wonder how long I can leave them in the
tree. It would be more practical to be able to do one picking.

I did not have problems with birds yet. Maybe, it is just that they have
never seen anything like it before, and did not get around to taste them
yet. There are a lot of pin cherries
around and the birds are happy with those smaller cherries. Pin cherries
ressemble Evans cherries, in appearance and taste, by the way.
The soil, the temperature, the light, etc. have some influence on the taste
of fruits. So any reference to taste, sourness or sweetness, should take
this into account. A variety cannot be judged entirely based on one
experience in only one location, with only one type of soil.

I heard that there is a second generation Evans, could it be the Bali? Maybe
Bernie Nikolai from Edmonton could set the record straight.
By the way, Euans, is most likely a mispelling (someone took the v to be a
u).

For my place, Evans is a great cherry!

Hélène
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve" <SDW12986@aol.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Bali vs Evans


> Well, that's interesting what Steve H writes about the suckers from the
> roots. I had my Bali cherry for a number of years, before it died, and
> it never made any kind of sprout for me. Before mine died, it did make
> some bubbles of gum on the lower 2 feet of the trunk in just a few
> spots. I'm not sure if that's usually a sign of a deadly health problem
> or not.
> When I cut it down, I saved the trunk section thinking I would inspect
> it, looking for the cause of death. The bark wouldn't peel off since the
> tree was dead, but all the surfaces looked very normal and the visible
> wood at the ends looked as if it had been cut from a healthy tree.
>
> Steve
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