Cherry

A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit).

Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet Prunus avium and the sour Prunus cerasus. The name ‘cherry’ also refers to the cherry tree and its wood, and is sometimes applied to almonds and visually similar flowering trees in the genus Prunus, as in “ornamental cherry” or “cherry blossom”.

Wild cherry may refer to any of the cherry species growing outside cultivation, although Prunus avium is often referred to specifically by the name “wild cherry” in the British Isles.

Prunus subg. Cerasus contains species that are typically called cherries. They are known as true cherries[1] and distinguished by having a single winter bud per axil, by having the flowers in small corymbs or umbels of several together (occasionally solitary, e.g. P. serrula; some species with short racemes, e.g. P. maacki), and by having smooth fruit with no obvious groove.

The English word cherry derives from Old Northern French or Norman cherise from the Latin cerasum,[3] referring to an ancient Greek region, Kerasous (Κερασοῦς) near Giresun, Turkey, from which cherries were first thought to be exported to Europe.[4] The indigenous range of the sweet cherry extends through most of Europe, western Asia, and parts of northern Africa, and the fruit has been consumed throughout its range since prehistoric times. A cultivated cherry is recorded as having been brought to Rome by Lucius Licinius Lucullus from northeastern Anatolia, also known as the Pontus region, in 72 BC.
Cherries were introduced into England at Teynham, near Sittingbourne in Kent, by order of Henry VIII, who had tasted them in Flanders.

Cherries arrived in North America early in the settlement of Brooklyn, New York (then called “New Netherland”) when the region was under Dutch sovereignty. Trades people leased or purchased land to plant orchards and produce gardens, “Certificate of Corielis van Tienlioven that he had found 12 apple, 40 peach, 73 cherry trees, 26 sage plants.., behind the house sold by Anthony Janszoon van Salee (from Salee [Morocco, Africa]) to Barent Dirksen [Dutchmen],… ANNO 18th of June 1639.”

The cultivated forms are of the species sweet cherry (P. avium) to which most cherry cultivars belong, and the sour cherry (P. cerasus), which is used mainly for cooking. Both species originate in Europe and western Asia; they usually do not cross-pollinate. Some other species, although having edible fruit, are not grown extensively for consumption, except in northern regions where the two main species will not grow. Irrigation, spraying, labor, and their propensity to damage from rain and hail make cherries relatively expensive. Nonetheless, demand is high for the fruit. In commercial production, sour cherries, as well as sweet cherries sometimes, are harvested by using a mechanized “shaker”.[10] Hand picking is also widely used for sweet as well as sour cherries to harvest the fruit to avoid damage to both fruit and trees.

Common rootstocks include Mazzard, Mahaleb, Colt, and Gisela Series, a dwarfing rootstock that produces trees significantly smaller than others, only 8 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) tall. Sour cherries require no pollenizer, while few sweet varieties are self-fertile.

A cherry tree will take three to four years once it is planted in the orchard to produce its first crop of fruit, and seven years to attain full maturity.