Sorbomespilus dessertnaja. An amazing tree bred by the great Ivan Mitchurin who crossed the rowan (sorbus aucuparia) with the black chokeberry (aronia melanocarpa). He then went on to cross one of these hybrids, Likjornaja i think, with the medlar (mespilus germanica) The result was a small shrub rarely exceeding 2.5 meters in height (8 feet), very cold hardy with fruit that is supposed to be very tasty.

It took me several years of searching to get this tree and i am still waiting to try the fruit one day. It is now flowering for the third time but has never managed to make fruit yet. I hope this year it will happen. Since a friend of mine has the same problem we are wondering whether it might be a pollination issue.

However the last two years we had really bad caterpillar infestations and many sorbus trees don't grow well for me here.

Close by are growing Aronia, Rowan and Medlar so pollination should not be a problem. Hopefully there will be fruit this year. This is also a great candidate for growing the seeds, since this three-way cross might produce lots of interesting, different offspring, if the seeds are viable.


Comments

  1. Bidouille6 May 2024 at 12:34

    I have a 2.5m Sorbomespilus dessertnaja at 1300m in the Jura region. It's flowering and fruiting each year stil I bought it and planted it (at 2m high already). Fruits are a bit acidic still but edible raw from what I can tel. Around there are many Sorbus aria and Sorbus aucuparia. Not sure if it is autofertile or one of these two species help. Kind regards

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