Anyone have any experience dealing with Starkbros. nursery ? I'm planning on adding a few other fruit trees to my place to expand the fruit season... This is tops on my list if it is worth while.

http://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/cherry-trees/starkrimson-sweet-cherry

I've not purchased anything from Starkbrothers, but they are a highly respected old line nursery. You should have no problems with them at all. - Millet (305 BO-)

Cherries need your best soil. You may even want to use a raised bed.

I'm wondering what the rootstock is and what are the chill requirements for this variety?

Lazz,

Based on my experience, and all of the info I have read, cherries will do well here. Insect & disease pressure, and a lack of adequate chilling, make growing them next to impossible, especially along the coast. Clemson does even not list them in their fruit growing guides.

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/plants/vegetables/tree_fruits_nuts/

Ned I'm thinking you mean will NOT do well here. That's what I thought as well, until last June when I was at a house up in Summerville & the guy had a tree full of super sweet cherries. He told me he got the tree online from Starkbros. I forgot what variety it was & don't remember if he had a pollinizer or not... I don't remember where the house was now.

Laaz,

we did buy one plant (apprium) from Stark. It came very well packed and is growing crazily since then - very vigorous and healthy. I would buy from them again with no hesitation.

I was also thinking about their cherries but it seems like their best varieties are up to zone 8... Please, keep us updated on your cherry project.

You may want to try Mini Royal and Royal Lee from Zeiger (Dave Wilson Nursery)

They are very low chill and pollinate each other. Not sure if you can source from Dave Wilson Nursery bu they will work very well in low chill areas.

http://www.davewilson.com/br40/br40_trees/cherry.html

Lazz,

You are right, that didn't come out right, I meant "will not".

The tree in Summerville sounds interesting. Wonder if the owner knows the variety? How old did it look to be? I love cherries, and they are pretty expensive in the stores here. (I imagine you would have a time keeping the birds away from them)

One thing about zones here in the USA, growing conditions in zones 8/9 in SC are a lot different than in zone 8/9 in California and Washington state. I sometimes see pictures of persimmons from CA, posted here, that have clean, blemish free foliage, even in the fall. That is not the case with my persimmons in hot humid SC.

Thanks everyone for the input. Now I just have to decide to give it a try...

Favorite true story I tell my Tropical and Temperate Fruits class, that seems appropriate here:

A local friend (Lakeland Florida) bought several cherry trees from Stark Brothers. I told him they'd not do here, due to lack of chilling, but he was not really a believer in this mysterious thing called chill, Stark rated them for Zone 9, and they have a 1-year, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee! What could go wrong?

He received the trees late winter/early spring. Of course they had been in Stark's cold storage for months, so had been fully chilled and were ready to grow! They burst into good growth, and did fine here the first summer. Went dormant normally in the fall, then never came out of dormancy. Of course, since he received them in January and February, and they shouldn't have sprouted until more than a year after that (February or March), the warranty was done with before he realized they weren't going to grow. I tried a gentle "told you so," but NOOOOOO -- he ordered 6 more trees to try it again. Obviously he must have done something wrong! Same result. Had he learned yet? NOOOOOO -- he ordered 6 more! He's now many hundreds of dollars in the cherry business. But the third time was the charm. He finally gave up, realizing they simply won't grow here.

So yes, Stark is a fine nursery with an excellent reputation and an excellent guarantee. But as mentioned above by Ned, not all Zone 9 (or other) is the same -- within a zone, chill accumulation varies widely. And Stark does not list chill requirement (I'm sure it's not known for a lot of their varieties).

So Laaz, if you could determine the chill requirement of specific varieties, then I'd think you might be wise to try it. But realize that most cherries are at the very high end of chill requirements within the genus prunus.

I was told, many years ago, by Wayne Sherman, Prunus breeder at University of Florida, that it was really hard to breed a low-chill cherry, since the gene that determines cyanide content (all Prunus contain cyanide) was linked to the chilling gene in cherry, so the lower-chill you bred them, the higher the cyanide content became, and that until then (1980s), he had never been able to produce one that would fruit in Gainesville and still be safe to eat. Of course that was years ago, so perhaps someone has solved that problem.

Thanks Dr. Manners. Cyanide ? The two (Mini Royal and Royal Lee) both are listed as 200-300 chill, but if they are loaded with cyanide whats the point ?

People in coastal San Diego are getting fruit production out of Mini Royal and Royal Lee. That's less than 100 chill hours a year in some locations.

Do a google search.

Thanks Chris, I'm going to look into these two varieties.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/jan/21/new-cherry-tree-varieties-thrive-in-mild-climate/

Only place I found that sells them online is out of stock for the season...

http://www.groworganic.com/catalogsearch/result/?order=relevance&dir=desc&q=Cherry+Tree&x=33&y=15

Laaz, I'm presuming if there are now named low-chill varieties, someone must have licked the cyanide problem. Or they'd not be available!

Coincidentally,

http://www.bananas.org/f8/minnie-royal-royal-lee-low-chill-15138.html

A friend of mine is trying them in South Florida!

We'll see.