Hi John

I'm interested in what folks have to say too. I just bought a young whip this season and so far it's growing very well. I have 2 other cherry trees (Richmond Early) that I enjoy very much and was hoping Jubileum would add something diff to the mix, I have noticed that my current cherry trees are very sensitive to the amount of sun they get. Pickins was getting pretty sparse till I cut down a few trees blocking their sun and the crop doubled this year.

Pam in cinti

That's interesting, Pam,
I think that most of my cherries are in enough sun. I do have some that I know are experiments in half or more shade, but that's a different question. Do you like the flavor of Richmond Early? I just bought balaton, partially based on positive reviews that many on this site gave for it. I also have Danube, which is younger and more productive than Jubileum so far, but still hasn't really got going. I am kind of feeling that there is a reason why Montmorency so dominates the market: productive, relatively disease free, tastes great, and not too sensitive to amount of sun.
John S
PDX OR

This is the 2nd year i've had Jubileum ... Its not in an optimal spot... But i didn't even see flowers on it this year. my Kansas Sweet at least flowers and makes like 20-30 fruit in its 3rd year in not a great spot. and made flowers and fruit in its 2nd year... Too bad the animals get the fruit before me hehe.

Hoping it does better next year, maybe i'll graft something else to it.

John, I got a Balaton whip at the same time. Hoping to buy an older fully branched Danube at the nursery this July. I like tart fruit, so what I like is often different from other folks choices. I planted the Richmond early because I found a great deal at a local Lowes during clearance. The larger tree started producing the following year post planting, but the smaller one took 3 years. I have enjoyed them greatly every year as they are wonderful tart and flavorful. Yesterday I did a taste test between the two Richmonds and found the one getting the most sun tasted much better than the other one. Of course that tree has produced for 4-5 years now, and the smaller is only giving it's second crop. That being said neither tree produced cherries as tasty as I recall. Also smaller. I believe it might be due to the later spring and cooler temps during growth, but it's just my guess. This spring came so late that about a month's worth of trees with diff bloom times all bloomed at once.

Even if they taste so so, they are far better than the canned ones.

Amy, I hope you figure a way to get cherries to eat too. I have several mulberry trees and goumi bushes that produce at the same time, and I think that lightens the load on my cherries.

Pam in cinti

My 2nd year Danube set a few fruit this year. If a deer does not get to it first, I'll see how it tastes (a deer took a branch of my Black Gold last night!!). I chose Danube because it's supposed to be one of the sweetest sour cherry. I like sweet fruit.

I have sweet cherries but they have more "issues" than the sour one.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the Hungarian cherries want more sun than the Montmorency. Hungary is many degrees latitude to the south of Northern France, where the Montmorency is from , I believe. I may have to experiment with one in a sunnier location.
John S
PDX OR

My Danube gets sun pretty much all day.

I just checked a globe. Hungary and France are on roughly equivalent latitudes, so that wouldn't be the difference. However, Hungary is much farther inland. Continental climates get much more heat units than more maritime ones. For example, Columbus Ohio will get a lot more heat units than Portland, ORegon. The ocean has an overall cooling and mellowing effect. I am going to try an experiment with some of the Hungarian varieties in my super heat packed microclimate to the South of the house to see if it makes a difference. I will let people know the results in a couple of years. I know the Danube was shooting up earlier, then much more slowly when put in a shady location. We'll see if it makes a difference.

Thanks,
John S

I would just contribute that the cooked flavor and color of Jubileum is quite exceptional. I would rate it better flavor than any of the others when cooked, but the others are quite good themselves. Jubileum is a bit more tart than Danube but sweeter than Montmorency. I love the Danube and Jubileum both eaten fresh but probably Danube more because it seems less tart to me, but perhaps I am not letting the Jubileum ripen as well as I should. Mine have only recently begun bearing moderately well after some years time. My Danube cherries are bigger than Jubileum also. Jubileum seemed to pit by hand more easily than Danube, with the pits popping out the stem-hole readily while those of Danube sometimes would pop instead out the sides of the cherry. Not that this matters much, It just slightly effects the knack of doing it by hand in a routine manner.

Are there sweet cherry genes in Jubileum or any of these others? I thought I read this before.

This post was edited by agritopiate on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 15:49

That's really good information, Agritopiate,
My Jubileum flowered a lot more and fruited more this year than ever before. It's still quite disappointing in productivity compared to a North Star or Montmorency. North Star has huge bacterial disease issues here, so it can't be my team leader. I'm not going to kill it, but I'm not going to depend on it either. I believe that the fruit of the Jubileum is very similar to Montmorency, and when I can let it actually turn completely ripe and purple instead of red, it may be slightly better tasting. It's just that I get so few of them, I am putting them in ziplocs and fruitsox so the birds don't get them.

Danube continues to disappoint in terms of productivity. I do find it much sweeter, almost too sweet for me. Like Pam in Cinti I prefer a balanced overall taste between tart and sweet, with lots of heavy cherry flavor, so the sweet cherries dont' do it as well for me. There are also the bird, pest, etc issues in sweet cherries.

The only things different this year than last year are that we got more sun last year, I added minerals to the soil (Boron, zinc, calcium, manganese), and the tree is one year older. No signs of disease on the Jubileum, very slight on Danube. Balaton is too young to fruit. The much smaller and younger Montmorency way outproduces any of the others. This is in line with what PersianMD was saying. If this continues I may decide to let Montmorency dominate in the garden. After all, it's #1 for a reason.
John S
PDX OR

Thanks skyjs.

I would also say of my Hungarian cherries that Danube is about a week ahead of Montmorency, Jubileum possibly up to two weeks ahead, and Balaton perhaps a few days ahead in my location. They mostly seem to have cherries hanging in fewer numbers of one to three instead of more as I see with the clusters of Montmorency, but perhaps this is a function of the age of the tree. The cherries hanging as singles with Danube in particular probably somewhat helps explain the larger size of that cultivar. The Hungarian cherries also seem to separate from the stems more easily when picking which is nice and less messy.

I would give more information on Balaton but I do not really have a fair comparison because the tree is sickly and has never grown right. However this is no fault of the tree but rather the result of me stupidly planting it in a gopher cage. These gopher cages might be a good idea in theory and you can get them in chicken wire 1/2 inch mesh but the problem is that they are still made of the usual galvanized material and so they do not corrode away easily. So, my Balaton cherry has always had sickly growth from what I presume is a problem of root strangulation. If the cage had simply corroded away after a few years of root establishment then all might have been well, but instead I got a fairly well gown tree now with half its buds missing except out near the tips of the limbs. What good is a gopher cage if it kills the tree's roots more effectively than a whole army of hungry gophers? Ah well, chalk that one up to experience or perhaps the lack of it. I can say that I think Balaton tastes the most like Montmorency but is perhaps a little larger, and it probably would be bearing quite well by now if not for the aforementioned gopher cage fiasco.

I hope you folks are not plagued by the notorious cherry fruit fly. For those of you who may not like to spray excessively and who do have to deal with this irksome pest, let me recommend my organic method of dealing with the little buggers. The trick is to pick and eat the cherries right when they get ripe and wait no longer. By doing this you get your extra protein from the tiny eggs or maggots before they are big enough to notice or have done any damage of consequence within the fruit. If you let them hang on the trees eventually the cherries turn soft and fermented and rotten inside and are hollowed out by the disgusting little fruit worms. This trick does not seem to work on currants however, as the worms from that species of fruit fly start to develop inside well before the fruit is ripe. I hope this helps.

This post was edited by agritopiate on Fri, Jun 27, 14 at 19:48