Very nice Konrad... I certainly don't have anything that looks delicious but you might find interest in pics of cherry species crossings that I have started to do at the UAF garden. There were days of about 15C at bloom and still only 5 of 63 blossoms made the cross attempt...

developing hybrids
sweet cherry 'lapins'

x
pin cherry
('J pound' or 'M liss')

and
photographed 7-4-2005


same hybrid
twig here ->
as compared with
a control sample
(not emasculated) ->


It is also interesting to note Images taken on July 24 at another test orchard from a friend Claire who let me snap the picture at on land above much of the cold we experience here in winter. His cherry 'evans' graft on pin cherry 'jumping pound' lasted and is still going strong since 1990.

Konrad, it looks like last springs very hard frost had not affected your plums! Here I had lost every last developing bud! My grafting attempts had gone well until we got blasted by hail that took off the new developing growth ... gggrrrr! Fortunately, the Sprout's Sunshine was spared and had grown into a nice three foot whip.

alcan_nw, really GOOD to hear of your crossings of Lapins x pincherry ... I've often thought of doing such work! In my area many pincherries grow, some of which are actually very delicious to eat out of hand! There was quite a remarkable stand in which had the largest fruit I had ever seen ... unfortunately, it was along road allowance and had gotten bulldozed!

Keep up the good work!

Terry

Thank you all!

alcan
Very Intersecting, thanks to drop in and sharing your ideas!....are you new to this forum, ? I think, have never seen you here before....welcome!

I hope, you get lucky with your crossings!

I think I know your friend Claire, he comes to the fruit festival at Devonian Gardens for many years already.
I know, he likes the Trailman Crab, one of the best apple up there! I sure like that one too.

Not sure, have you seen the thread on Stella Cherry? I was able to graft some onto Evans and had fruits this year.

I also have allot of Evans grafted to Pincherry and producing good, it makes them hardier then Evans
on there own root!

2 days ago, I have taken these pictures on my remaining Apples, just to see, what one can expect at this time of the year, the condition they are in.

Norkent, still crisp, the best keeping apple so far.

Collet, good flavor, second best, but apple is soft already.

Sunrise, soft but nice, this was a surprise to me, how long it still lasted.

Goodland, soft too, nice flavor.

Ruby Red, at the very end of storage life.

Norland, past its storage life, just starting to rot from inside out....as one of the very first apple to pick, it did amazingly well!...but one has to pick them about 1 week
earlier, before full ripe.
Konrad

I have another update on some remaining apples.....we made a pie today with Norkent apples, still one more to go then
they are done!
I would say, to eat Norkent out of hand it would not taste so great anymore, because flavor is not there but for pie it tasted fine.
I just kept them this long, to see what actually goes on over long period of time and surly, Norkent lived up to it's promise as a good keeper!....too bad, flavor seem to fade away, nevertheless, still good until Christmas!

This pic was taken yesterday.
Konrad

Konrad,

love that you are doing this. I'm trying to figure out what to plant for fruit trees in my yard and you are being a huge help. I know I want one apple for fresh eating and another for storage. Plus a couple years ago someone (never found out who), brought plums into work. One was a yellow plum the other an Italian plum. Both were delicious and I wish I knew the names so I could plant them. Any suggestions?

Syreeta

No problem....I'm here to help
As for fresh eating, you could go with Norland and Norkent as a keeper, both are rock hardy verities. With plums....a yellow [rock hardy also] is the sprout sunshine, from the sprout farm, but they are not in business anymore, I have grafted a few this year.
There is a picture of it, 3rd. pic, mixed in with the blue.
All Italian plums I know of seem not to be too hardy for my zone 3.There is a nice hardy supreme plum I know of.....it is crucial, that most Japanese plum overlap flowering period, for satisfactory crosspollination.
In ohter words...the more plum trees you have, the better
it will be for any sign of getting fruits.
Konrad

Thanks for the information Konrad. Are they dwarf or regular apples trees? Which one do you prefer? If you can't think of an Italian plum that is hardy I guess it wasn't that then. It was a dark purple plum that looks like yours with the yellow ones. Thanks for all the information. I'll probably be planting next year as drainage needs to be finished first.

Syreeta

>>Are they dwarf or regular apples trees? Which one do you prefer

I do like regular or standard rootstock, just because they supposed to live longer and more vigorous growing.
But really, dwarf might be fine, you still can enjoy many years of fruits and fun! Don't give up on that dark plum yet, there is still allot of fruits out there we don't know of it, or perhaps the tree was top grafted like I did, this way, you can grow sometimes a zone 5 variety.
Konrad

Hi,

Let me get this right???? Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) will freely/naturally hybridize with pin cherry (P. pensylvanica) to form a natural interspecific hybrid? So that, in nature, do to the occasional introduction/recruitment of sweet cherry seedlings, some local pin cherries might have some sweet cherry in their lineage?

Also, can both sweet cherry and sour cherry (P. cerasus) be hybridized with (and grafted to) pin cherry?

Sorry, can't help you on this one, I'm not a breeder.
I only know of grafting sweet and sour cherries to pin cherries.