- Tieton Cherries
Washington grower tries new variety
- By René Featherstone
Western Correspondent
Doug and Kathy Grover’s experiment with the Tieton is a case in point. In their orchard down by Kennewick they planted 18 acres to that cherry six years ago. A front runner variety to come out of the Washington State University (WSU) Prosser, cherry breeding program (which is most famous for their release of the Rainier cherry), the Tieton sure is a looker – a cherry big and beautiful, with a mahogany shine as though waxed, the flesh appealingly pink and firm.
“It’s a two-bite cherry,” Grover says. “It’s a cultivar to get excited about.”
Last year his Tietons packed out mostly 9-Row and 10-Row, which is one of the most promising aspects of the variety. He’s also pleased with the stems which he thinks won’t succumb to turning brown as those of Bings sometimes do, brown stems being a setback on the export markets.
Strategy-wise, Grover wants to stretch out his cherry harvest with the Tietons since they mature earlier than the Bings.
The Prosser research indicated that one characteristic of the Tieton is light cropping. Grover found that the variety flowers in twos or threes mainly. He also noticed that the Tieton tree responds to heading cuts by sprouting only a few new shoots – typically three, compared to the five or six a Bing will grow.
Grover decided to offset the light bearing characteristic of the Tieton by growing the trees on a precocious rootstock, namely, Gisela 6. The Gisela is a dwarfing understock series out of Europe, relatively new to the United States. Growers here have had varied experiences with cherries on Gisela; some like the growing habits of the understocks which, with Bings, produce so profusely that some growers actually thin the clusters.
Early on Grover estimated that a mature Tieton block on Gisela is likely to yield three to five tons an acre, which is less than what the average Bing block produces but of a higher percentage premium fruit size than Bings.
He’d hoped to know more regarding the profitability of the Tieton this year. However, the verdict’s still out. He picked but slightly over one ton an acre, and 50% of the crop was culled. “It was horrible packout weather,” he related – wind and rain came at the worst possible time. Also, after “a snowball bloom” on his Tietons, “we had a real heavy drop” of green fruit.
The thing is, the Bings also had a drop to where the trees bore only a light crop, and, cullage on Bings was high as well. “This was not a year to judge a cherry,” he sums up.
The Grover family got into orcharding 26 years back when Doug’s father, C. Leavitt, bought the spread on the north-facing slope with 14 acres of cherries in production there at the time. It was a big switch from the row cropping Leavitt had been doing down by Hermiston, Grover relates. Over the years they expanded their orchard operations to where today they farm 120 acres, half in apples, half in cherries.
Their latest second-generation plantings were a shift from apples to cherries, as they took out blocks of Red Delicious and Criterions. In addition to the Tietons they now have a younger block of Chelans as well, plus their Bings. And this spring they planted some Rainiers. Down the road they figure on a 2 1/2-week harvest window: the Chelans will come off first, then the Tietons, then the Bings, and then Bings which they’ll delay in maturity by applying GA (gibberellic acid), Grover says.
The Grovers value the close relationship they’ve established with the WSU research staff at Prosser. Leavitt especially admired the work Tom Toyama was doing, Grover says. The Tieton is one of Toyama’s 1971 breeding efforts; he selected the PC 7144-6 from about 75 seedling crosses of Stella and Early Burlat in 1977. The variety was patented by WSU in 1997.
Professor Greg Lang continued the cherry research of Toyama who left Prosser in the mid-1980s, and of Ed Proebsteing who retired in 1993. Lang said that growers like the Grovers are important to tree fruit research.
Grover feels that research conducted within the region is invaluable to the industry, since the performance of cherry cultivars can vary so much depending on climate and soil conditions. “We went up to Prosser time after time... Research is the future.”
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