To: Bill Russell <shaman8@verizon.net>, nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [nafex] Does anyone have a superior-fruiting Nanking Cherry
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:55:32 -0500
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.
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