Stone Fruits for
Commercial Planting in Minnesota?
Some varieties of hybrid plums and tart cherries are reliably
hardy in Minnesota, but there is very little commercial production
of stone fruits here.
Prunus species trees are quite short-lived, only productive
for about ten years. This means that the trees have only a few years
to make money for a grower. A couple of years of poor crops can
mean not breaking even on a planting. So there’s more financial
risk in stone fruits than in apples.
Plums and cherries bloom earlier than apples, so the flowers have
a greater chance of being killed by a late spring frost. Crop failure
is not uncommon in central Minnesota. Birds are likely to be a very
serious pest of the ripening fruit.
Marketing plums can be more difficult than marketing apples, in
part because it’s much easier to damage the fragile fruit even
with careful handling. Marketing tart cherries is even more difficult,
because the fruits are fragile and small, and because consumers
need to pit them in order to use them.
However, a small planting of plums could be a smart addition
to your planting if you are growing other fruits. Likewise, a determined
marketer might be able to derive some income from a planting of
tart cherries. Hybrid plums are not self-fruitful; therefore, at
least two varieties must be planted. Tart cherries are self-fruitful,
so a single-variety orchard could be planted.
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