Found this jewel, eh jewels at the Grocery store. I'm going to try and grow the pits. Store in peat moss for 6 weeks in the fridge then plant outside?

ok well at the risk of sounding like a total fruit cake, you do realize that it is a fluke and the tree the seed produces will not produce fruit doubled like that?

Ok, yes I know you know.

I'm just sayin'.

I have a huge black cherry tree in the yard that I get TONS of seedlings out of all over the place and they grow surprisingly fast, I think most cherry trees produce fruit pretty quickly.
The trick would be to find a pollinator. I bought some cherry trees this spring and the tag says they get fruit by themselves but produce more with a pollinator. The pollinator would have to bloom at the same time as the other tree, AND it has to be the same type (sweet, or tart) as they cannot pollinate eachother. I was surprised to learn that. I figured a tart cherry could pollinate a sweet, but I guess it does make sense.

So are there 2 pits or does it share 1 pit?
Fraternal or Identical?

Two pits, yes I know it would produce normal cherries but these are good!

My Montmorency pie cherry pollinates my Sam sweet cherry. Unless perhaps there is another cherry in the neighorhood I don't know of. ??

I understand that cherries do not need a pollinator- so you will still get fruit. You may only be thinking it is pollinating it, when it is just producing fruit on its own, but I have had multiple sources show that sweet and tart cherries do not pollinate each other. It is also possible there are other cherries around, they are pretty popular, but I don't know how far in distance the trees can be from each other.


ok well here is a link explaining some pollinating, sounds pretty confusing to my small brain

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/p...

FL, you have now piqued my curiosity. I found somewhat confusing info online.

Amherst Nursery has a nice chart that shows Montmorency as a pollinator for Sam, but I can't quickly find a state university chart which would be a more trustworthy resource for me ( no offense to Amherst)

I also don't know the distance parameters. I do know that my two trees are about 40 feet from one another. Sam is not self fertile, Montmorency is. I don't believe any of my adjacent neighbors have cherries and we all sit on 5 acres or more. I do have wild cherries of some sort in the back woods but they don't bloom at the same time, or even bear much fruit. Both my pie and sweet cherries bloom and bear at the same time.

I will pursue this a bit more, as I have included this info in the database as a comment and will edit if incorrect. My thought is to ask WSU which is our state university with a focus on agriculture. May take awhile.

Per the WSU fruit booklet EBO0937, all pie cherries are self-fertile and usually are not good pollinators for sweet cherries because the typically bloom later. Since my trees do coincide in bloom, I am fairly sure Montmorency is pollinating Sam. As luck would have it, the WSU booklet addresses several specific varieties but not Sam.

**Edited to apologize for not including web links but I am struggling without a computer and using my Nook for web access - no clue how to cut/paste on this tiny device.

Well I don't know how far bees go to pollinate, but I wouldn't think more than a mile or two radius (?)

WELL this is a little off topic... I think Keith was really asking about how to get his seed turned into a seedling.

Do the cherry pits need some special treatment to germinate?

Sorry for the topic wander but I wanted to followup to ensure my comment info was correct.

Back to topic, I don't notice any seedlings around either cherry, but do get tons of suckers on the sweet cherry, both from the base of the tree and off the roots. I think most sweet cherries are on grafted rootstock, not sure how that may affect your seedling (it may have a weaker root system). Good luck with the seed experiment and let us know how it turns out.