North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lucky.Pittman@murraystate.edu" <Lucky.Pittman@murraystate.edu>]

Revisiting Sarah's comments from some time back...
"As for Nankings, I'm a bit horrified by you folks
out there bashing them!  My candy loving children
love to go visit my friend when hers are ripe.  Barb
has a row of wind break stock purchased as a bundle
of seedlings from T&T Seeds, Manitoba about 9 years
ago (and they still sell this package).  They all
have different sized and coloured fruit, but only one
bush out of the row is maybe too tart to thoroughly
enjoy fresh by all of us.  The 10 bushes all have
fruit that is about thumbnail sized (although size
does vary slightly) and come in dark red, bright red,
peach and white.  Her bushes are about 6-8' tall,
very full of branches and fruit every year on the top
of her windswept hill zone 3 hill.  They are very
sweet and tasty when ripe and make excellent jam
which tastes like cherry with a hint of chokecherry."

Location is - or can be - of tantamount importance.
I have no doubt that the Nankings are great in
Alberta & Manitoba - and in northern areas of the
USA, as well.  Same for the Evans/Bali cherry - our
friends in really cold winter climates love them -
and I've seen photos of Evans in fruit - incredibly
productive.  I'd want it growing in my orchard if I
lived in MN.
But here in my hot zone 6, Evans/Bali is a real
'dog', and the Nankings are certainly not worth the
trouble to pick, even if they were productive; famine
food, at best, and I'd hate to think that I had to
depend on them for any degree of sustenance. I'm sure
it's a different story in zones 2,3,4.
Evans/Bali is too late-maturing here to escape insect
damage like the productive old Montmorency, and the
few fruits I've had opportunity to sample were small
and not all that tasty - but it is a prolific
suckerer; I've got suckers popping up 30-40 ft away
from my original tissue-cultured selection (If
anybody wants some, they're welcome to any that I
don't mow down, next winter).

Lucky Pittman
Hopkinsville, KY