Fruit Demonstration
PCDF
To demonstrate varieties of fruits being developed by the University of Saskatchewan.
A bird net was erected over the sour cherry and haskap plants in late 2019, resulting in much higher yield results for haskaps in 2020. Sour cherries tend to yield more biennially (that is, yield are higher every other year), so 2020 was a lower year than 2019. A comparative chart below shows successive yields since 2016.
Dwarf sour cherries are not a native crop to the Canadian Prairies. They are the product of a number of crosses were initially begun by Dr. Les Kerr of the University of Saskatchewan by crossing a cold hardy cherry from Siberia, Prunus fruiticosa, with a sour cherry originating in Europe (brought over by settlers) by the name of Prunus cerasus. Since then the development has continued by incorporations of other cherries and by the use of dwarfing root stalks. The advantage of the dwarfing root stalk is that it forces earlier fruiting from the plant and it also creates a more workable tree when harvesting, for both manual and mechanical pickers. Dwarf sour cherries constitute a very typical “cherry pie filling” cherry.