hi all, very new to fruit trees. live in connecticut in usa and got my wife a dwarf bing cherry for mothers day. i've read they need to be cross pollinated w/ another cherry tree. my ? is this, would a grafted weeping cherry do the trick? we have 2 nice ones in the yard, along with lots of flowering perrenials and a dwarf peach. we have lots of hummingbirds and bees. am i going to need another fruit cherry or not to get fruit out of this? any feedback appreciated - mike
The Bing Cherry does not necessarily have to have a pollinizer but it will produce more fruit on the tree year after year if there is another fruiting Cherry nearby. When the Bing senses another Cherry is around it may not matter if the other Cherry is a fruiting or is an ornamental or flowering Cherry. Based on this thinking I'd say that an ornamental Cherry can act as a pollinzer for the Bing, which will help enable the Bing to produce a larger crop than it would without the second Cherry nearby. I do not believe at this time that the other Cherry can act as an adequate pollen parent for the Bing. Have the bees transfer pollen from the flowering Cherry to work to pollinate the Bing flowers. I am not sure if the reverse is true either that a bee can carry pollen from the Bing and with any significance pollinate the flowering Cherry. This is exactly the type of cross-pollination we would want if we wanted to develop a hybrid of the two trees however but I think the chances of it happening are real close to being in line with a one million to one chance of it happening. Even hand emasculation trials that I am aware of have not been successful of let's say a Shirofugen or a Shirotae having Bing quality fruit through a series of genetic crosses hoping for the best of both worlds. That is not for me to say that it cannot happen, it is just that the finished product has not been perfected yet that I know of. A lot of people in Japan and elsewhere would love to have a Kwanzan produce Royal Ann quality fruit. The bees should be able to pollinate the Bing flower to flower without a second Cherry tree nearby. I had flowering Cherries planted near fruiting Cherries and did not even think for a second that the fruiting Cherries for pollination purposes would be helped at all by bees moving from an ornamental Cherry to one of the fruiting Cherries but I did expect the fruiting Cherries to aid in the pollination as well as the pollinizing of each other. I cannot tell you if the fruiting Cherries benefited from having the flowering Cherries nearby or vice versa. I would think the Bing will sense that another Cherry tree, albeit an ornamental one, is nearby in a solitary planting. Excellent question and one that I do not have a good answer for. Jim
jim, thanks for the response. it's a bit more than i knew before so it's all good. i got my mom and my sis one of these trees also for moms day also. i read that if you cut a flowering branch from another fruiting cherry and tie the branch to yours, this will also do the trick. if so, than i'll just take a cutting from one of their trees every spring and tie it to mine. thanks again - mike
