The Cherry that can take -40C

[fruitlovers]

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180321-the-secret-cherry-taking-over-canada

[KarenRei]

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180321-the-secret-cherry-taking-over-canada

Oh wow... I totally need to get my hands on some of these; that's as hardy as sea buckthorn!

I've been to SK during the winter before, and it puts to shame any winter we have here.  The only question is how much summer heat they need.

[fruitlovers]

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180321-the-secret-cherry-taking-over-canada

Oh wow... I totally need to get my hands on some of these; that's as hardy as sea buckthorn!

I've been to SK during the winter before, and it puts to shame any winter we have here.  The only question is how much summer heat they need.

I thought you would like it!

[roblack]

I like it too. Seems to be a nice fruit and small plant, with quite a few cultivars. Doubt it would fruit down here, but tempted to try.

I like gifting plants like these for friends and family members that live in cooler climates, partially because I fantasize about showing up around harvest time.

[echinopora]

They won't require much in the way of heat hours. We used to have a few cherry bushes in northern Alberta as a kid. I have seen them growing well in La Crete Alberta. In the Peace region of Alberta the trees leaf out mid june and first consistent snows of the year come in late september. They wouldn't have been improved cultivars but our fruits were over 1cm (1/2 inch) across with a largish seed, but fragile skin. The only other fruits I can ever remember growing up there were blueberries, raspberries, huckleberries, saskatoon berries,strawberries, apple hearty apple crab crosses. Snow or frost can occur in summer if a arctic system pushes in. We also had to carry 2 five gallon pails of lard to school uphill both ways in the driving snow, providing said driving snow hadn't drifted the doors shut.

[SoCal2warm]

There's also the so-called "Romance" series of cherries (such as 'Carmine Jewel' ) which were bred at the University of Saskatchewan by crossing regular sweet cherries with Prunus fruticosa.
Sour cherries (the type commonly used in cherry pie) are also believed to have originated from natural hybridization between sweet cherry and P. fruticosa.
These new cherries are very similar in flavor to the sour cherry variety but are much sweeter.

[KarenRei]

I sent an inquiry.  They have US and Canadian distributors, but no European distributors, and seem to tightly control who may distribute the plants.  If I can't get ahold of a proper cultivar, I may have to buy a bucket of fruit the next time I'm in the states (for the pits), then cull based on quality at maturity.  Hey, I have over 8 hectares, there's no shortage of space for experimentation   

They won't require much in the way of heat hours.

Define "much".    Average July high in Reykjavík is 14,2°C/57,6°F, and my land is about 100m elevation (~0,6°C/~1°F cooler).  A typical "hottest day of the year" in Reykjavík is in the lower 20s °C/70-75°F, and occasionally not even that. The all-time record high is 25,7°C/78,3°F.  Our winters are quite mild for our latitude (our average January low is the same as Las Vegas! -2,4°C/27,7°F, but our summers are extremely mild.  That said, it's been warming in the arctic faster than the rest of the world; our last decade has averaged about 1°C warmer than the long-running average.

I'm not sure where you were in northern Alberta, but just random guessing at Fort McMurray, I see that July highs there are an average 23,7°C, record 38,9°C, with average highs from May through September higher than our July high.  But of course the winters are vastly colder, with an average January mean of -17,4°C. Continental climate vs. maritime    We're also windier, particularly in the winter, when we average averaging at least one storm of hurricane strength per year and gales perhaps twice a week on average, with gusts occasionally reaching up to Cat. 5 hurricane strength in a bad year (although summers are relatively calm, at least by our standards)

At least our soils are good, once you fertilize them (most are depleted and eroded due to overgrazing... but with proper nutrients, volcanic soils are excellent due to superb drainage and cation exchange capacity).  My land mainly needs phosphorus, which is something I'm working to remedy; I had two samples tested, one from a grassy (but thin) area and one from where almost no grass would grow; normal is 20-50ppm, while the grassy area measured in at 15 and the barren area at 4(!).  But on places where I've had the neighbor dump horse manure, everything becomes lush and green around the pile as the nutrients leach out.

[echinopora]

In a continental climate you should put a little more value on extreme periods. Check out the coldest and hottest summers and winters on record. If a arctic low decides to park itself over you in July, those cherries will be coming off the tree without having much heat at all. On the flip side of the jet stream sets up a strong vortex the heat can be unrelenting. One thing plants from up there are poor at dealing with is sustained pest pressure, as they are used to having winter come and kill off pest populations before they ever really build up. The furthest north I have seen producing standard cherries in Canada are Vernon BC and Campbell River BC.