North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lee Reich <leeareich@gmail.com>]

I (and many others, including Darrow, who included nanking cherry as one 
fruit in his 1937 USDA Yearbook "Some Unusual Opportunities in Fruit 
Breeding") see a lot of potential in Nanking cherry. I've been enjoying 
random seedlings but may be inspired, following all this discussion, to start 
doing some selection. Seedlings are quick to grow and bear quickly. Nanking 
cherry is one of my most reliable fruits -- with no care. 

The following, from the Nanking cherry chapter in my book Uncommon Fruits for 
Every Garden, should be of interest:

            Early in the twentieth century, Russian fruit breeders introduced 
a number of good-flavored cultivars with moderately large fruits (about 
five-eighths of an inch across): ‘Amurka’, ‘Ogonek’, ‘Pionerka’, ‘Samaya 
Rannaya’, and ‘Kabarovchanka’. More recent cultivars include ‘Alisa’, 
‘Chereshnevaya’, ‘Detskaya’, ‘Natali’, ‘Okeanskaya’, ‘Smuglyanka’, and 
‘Vostochnaya’.
            Besides working with the pure species, Russian breeders developed 
hybrids between the Nanking cherry and apricot, plum, and other species of 
cherry. Among the most promising hybrids were crosses between Nanking cherry 
and another very hardy cherry, western sand cherry (Prunus besseyi). 
Cultivars of these hybrids with good flavor range in color from the light red 
fruits of ‘Leto’ (with fruits three-quarters of an inch across), to the deep 
cherry-red fruits of ‘Damanka’ and ‘Karamelka’, to the almost black fruits of 
‘Smuglyanka’.
            Most cultivars from North America were developed to withstand the 
climate of the upper Midwest. From Canada, in 1938, came ‘Drilea’, so named 
because of its adaptation to the dry leas. ‘Eileen’ was another cultivar from 
Canada, a hybrid with the western sand cherry that proved to be very 
susceptible to brown rot and a poor yielder. ‘Baton Rouge’ was a similar 
hybrid that produced large fruits, but these fruits were of poor quality and 
yields were low. In 1949, the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station 
introduced ‘Orient’, notable mostly for being self-fertile, but also for its 
tasty, fairly large fruits. Also around the middle of the twentieth century, 
Dr. George Slate introduced two superior clones, ‘Slate’ and ‘Monroe’, from 
the New York Agricultural Experiment Station.
            Even if they still exist at all, none of these cultivars is 
readily available. Fortunately, most seedlings produce tasty fruit, often 
better than named selections of tart cherry (Prunus cerasus). I remember a 
tall hedge of seedlings bordering a bicycle path along which I once rode 
almost daily; each July, this hedge presented me with a wall of fruit upon 
which to feast.


Lee Reich, PhD
Come visit my farmden at http://leereich.blogspot.com/
http://leereich.com/

Books by Lee Reich:
A Northeast Gardener's Year
The Pruning Book
Weedless Gardening
Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
Landscaping with Fruit
Grow Fruit Naturally

On Jan 18, 2013, at 9:02 AM, Bill Russell wrote:

> I'll bet Edible Landscaping in VA would like to hear about this.
> 
> Bill Z5
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jim Fruth" <jimfruth@charter.net>
> To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 9:13 PM
> Subject: [nafex] Does anyone have a superior-fruiting Nanking Cherry
> 
> 
>    I have a good tasting, quite productive, self fertile Nanking Cherry.
> Since it is self fertile, some NAFEXers urged me to propagate it but when I
> asked who would sell it, no suggestion was forthcoming.  Any ideas?
> 
> Jim Fruth
> Pequot Lakes, MN
> 
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