Hedelfingen

Hedelfingen sweet cherry, also known as Hedelfinger Riesenkirsche, is a very old, traditional, and globally known German variety, discovered around 1850. in Hedelfingen near Stuttgart. Due to its legendary tree robustness, exceptionally large fruit, premium flesh quality, and high resistance to winter frosts, it has for decades been one of the most popular and most reliable late table sweet cherry varieties throughout Europe and in our region.

It is a fully cross-pollinated variety. Presence of compatible pollinator varieties flowering at the same time is essential in the orchard. Since it flowers medium-late to late, its best, biologically synchronized, and field-proven pollinators are Regina, Lambert, Sam, Van, and Stella. Very early varieties, such as Burlat, cannot serve as pollinators due to a complete lack of overlap in the flowering stages.

The tree is very vigorous, strong, robust, and long-lived, with powerful scaffold branches that form a wide, tall, spacious, and branched canopy whose branches characteristically arch under the weight of the crop. It enters full bearing somewhat later when grafted onto standard vigorous rootstocks, around the fourth or fifth year after planting, but once it starts bearing, it produces regular, stable, extremely abundant, and record-breaking yields. It requires regular and proper winter and summer, or green, pruning in order to control its great natural vigor and regularly renew the fruiting elements, especially May bouquets.

It belongs to the group of late sweet cherry varieties. In our region and under continental climatic conditions, it ripens in the second half of June, usually between June 15 and 25, in the fifth and sixth weeks of the sweet cherry season, arriving a few days before Kordia.

Harvesting takes place during the second half of June. The fruit tolerates remaining on the tree after full ripening very well, without loss of firmness. It is characterized by a noticeably long and firm stem, which greatly facilitates, speeds up, and reduces the cost of hand picking, without the risk of damaging or tearing the flesh around the calyx end.

It is characterized by exceptionally good storage ability. In fresh condition, it can be successfully kept in cold storage for 1 to even 2 weeks. Due to its very firm and crisp fruit flesh and elastic skin, it tolerates picking, rough mechanical sizing, packing, and long-distance transport perfectly, without the risk of crushing or juice leakage. It is primarily a premium table variety for fresh consumption and late commercial export, but due to its flesh characteristics, it is also highly sought-after and valued in the industry for producing premium compotes, preserves, syrups, and candied fruit.

The fruit is large to very large, with an average weight of 8–9 g, and with excellent agricultural practice individual berries can reach over 10 g. It is exceptionally uniform on the tree and recognizable by its elongated-heart-shaped to ovate-oval form with a long stem. The skin is firm, smooth, and distinctly glossy, intense dark red at harvest, turning luxury deep burgundy to almost coal-black at full maturity, with small, discreet lighter dots, or lenticels. The flesh is dark red, exceptionally firm, compact, and recognizably crisp, typical of a firm-fleshed sweet cherry, very fleshy and juicy. The taste is unsurpassed, rich, full, and dessert-like, characterized by high sugar content, fine refreshing acidity, and a luxurious varietal aroma. The stone is medium-sized and elliptical, and the variety belongs to the group of true freestone cherries: it separates from the flesh completely easily, smoothly, and cleanly, making it ideal for mechanical pitting.

It is moderately resistant to external factors. It shows outstanding natural resistance of the wood and flower buds to harsh winter frosts and low temperatures during dormancy. It is susceptible to fruit cracking caused by heavy and prolonged summer rains during the ripening period, so in rainy June conditions it requires standard preventive chemical protection against Monilinia and fruit rot, Monilinia laxa, as well as mandatory protection from birds, which are attracted by the large, dark crop.

The root system is exceptionally strong, deep, and branched. It uses moisture and nutrients from deeper layers very well and tolerates dry periods successfully, but it absolutely does not tolerate heavy, compacted, clayey, or waterlogged soils, where excess groundwater quickly causes root asphyxia, or suffocation, and decline of the entire tree. It requires exclusively permeable, light, warm, and fertile soils on well-ventilated sites.

Our sweet cherry fruit trees are produced on highly compatible, certified rootstocks: mahaleb cherry, Prunus mahaleb, and wild sweet cherry for classic and long-lived orchards on drier and skeletal soils. In addition to vigorous rootstocks, we also produce fruit trees on modern low- to medium-vigor vegetative rootstocks Gisela 5 and Gisela 6, which are the ideal standard for controlling the great natural vigor of this variety, enabling the formation of dense trellis orchards, drastically accelerating entry into bearing, as early as the second year, and making pruning and harvesting from the ground, without ladders, significantly easier.