Summit

Summit originates from Canada, where it was developed at the renowned Summerland Research Station in British Columbia through planned crossing of Van and Sam, and was released into wide commercial production in 1973. Due to its exceptional, giant fruit size, beautiful regular heart-shaped form, and premium dessert-quality flesh, it is one of the most highly valued, most attractive, and most profitable mid-season sweet cherry varieties for modern market production.

It is a fully cross-pollinated variety. Since it flowers medium-early, its best, biologically synchronized, and field-proven pollinators are the self-fertile varieties Stella, Lapins, and the early Burlat. It flowers very abundantly and over a long period.

The tree is very vigorous, strong, and robust, with a pronounced upright branch growth angle when young; later, under the weight of an abundant crop, it forms a large, spacious, well-branched, and broad-pyramidal canopy. It enters full bearing early when grafted onto modern low-vigor rootstocks, as early as the second or third year after planting. Once it starts bearing, with suitable pollinators, it produces regular, stable, and exceptionally high yields every year. It responds very well to standard winter and summer, or green, pruning, as well as mandatory bending and training of branches in the first two years in order to control its naturally strong vigor and widen the canopy branch angles.

It belongs to the group of medium-early sweet cherry varieties. In our region and under continental climatic conditions, it reaches harvest maturity in mid-June, usually between June 10 and 18, in the fourth week of the sweet cherry season, around two weeks after the early Burlat variety.

Harvesting takes place in mid-June. The fruit ripens fairly uniformly on the tree and is characterized by a recognizable, medium-long, and exceptionally thick green stem that firmly holds the massive fruit on the branch, significantly facilitating and speeding up hand picking without the risk of tearing or damaging the flesh around the calyx end.

It is characterized by good storage ability. In fresh condition, it can be successfully kept in cold storage for 7–14 days. Due to its firm and compact fruit flesh, it tolerates picking, sorting, mechanical sizing, packing, and transport very well, without the risk of crushing. It is primarily intended for luxury fresh table consumption on domestic and foreign markets, where, thanks to its giant size, it regularly achieves a premium price at the beginning of the main season.

The fruit is exceptionally large to giant, with an average weight of 9.5 to over 11 g, and with excellent agricultural practice individual berries easily reach a caliber diameter exceeding 28–32 mm. It is uniform on the tree and regular in shape, highly attractive and heart-shaped, with gently rounded shoulders. The skin is thin yet elastic, smooth, and distinctly glossy, intense red at harvest, turning beautiful dark red to glossy dark burgundy at full technological maturity, never becoming overly dark or completely coal-black. The flesh is light red, very firm, compact, and crisp, typical of a firm-fleshed sweet cherry, exceptionally fleshy and juicy. The taste is premium, rich, and dessert-like, characterized by high sugar content, fine refreshing acidity, and a luxurious varietal aroma. The stone is medium-sized.

It is characterized by very good natural resistance of the fruit to cracking caused by heavy summer rains during the ripening period, making it considerably safer in open-field cultivation than its parent variety, Van. It shows outstanding natural resistance of the wood and flower buds to harsh winter frosts during full dormancy. In humid and 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, glossy crop.

The root system is exceptionally strong, deep, and branched. It uses moisture and nutrients from deeper soil layers very well, but it absolutely does not tolerate heavy, clayey, compacted, or waterlogged soils with a high groundwater level, where lack of oxygen quickly causes root asphyxia, or suffocation, and tree decline. It requires deep, permeable, light, 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 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 globally mandatory standard for this variety, as they ideally control its great natural vigor, drastically accelerate entry into full bearing, as early as the second year, and enable the establishment of intensive, high-density, and highly profitable commercial orchards.