7 Secrets of Rainier Cherries
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Originally published in July 2014; updated May 2022.
Ready for a Few Secrets?
You might be asking what is a Rainier cherry? They’re golden yellow cherries with a perky pink to red blush and a sinfully sweet flavor. A delicate fruit inside and out and a must to devour by the handful during the few short months they are in season. And with National Rainier Cherry Day happening on July 11th, we’re celebrating this delicious cherry variety here by unveiling 7 things you might not know about Rainier cherries.
1. Rainier Cherry = Bing + Van
It still baffles me to think that Bing and Van, two red cherry varieties, were combined to create the golden Rainier cherry that we know and love today. In 1952, that’s exactly what happened when Harold Fogel and other researchers from the Washington Agriculture Experiment Station in Prosser, WA crossed the two well-known red cherry varieties using traditional breeding methods of crossing pollen. It’s rumored that the mother Rainier tree still resides in Prosser!
2. Named After A Mountain
Rainier cherries are large in size, so it’s fitting they were named after our state’s most mammoth mountain. Mt. Rainier sits at an elevation of 14,409 feet and is the highest peak in the Cascade Mountain range.
3. Birds Approve Too
One of the most common problems Rainier cherry growers face are pesky birds snackin’ on the crop. With the fruit’s sweet flavor, you can’t really blame them, but growers go to great lengths to protect their crops from birds. Nets over/around orchards, reflective tape hanging on tree branches, nest boxes, and falcons flying overhead are all ways cherry growers help control bird problems.
4. Higher Sugars (or Brix) and Larger Size
4. Higher Sugars (or Brix) and Larger SizeThis may not be the best kept secret, but Rainier cherries are naturally big and super-sweet. The average Brix is the sugar content of an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by mass Brix, or sugar levels, range for Rainier cherries is 17° to 23°. That means that one-fifth each cherry is sugar! Don’t let that fool you, there are multiple health benefits of Rainier cherries.
5. Working as a Team
Rainier cherry trees are often planted between dark-sweet cherry trees in orchard rows in order to provide a different pollen source for bees during the important cherry bloom stage. That’s because most cherry varieties need two sources of pollen for their blossoms to be successfully pollinated by bees. Rainier cherry trees are still used as pollinizers today, although here at Stemilt, we plant orchards of Rainiers in order to harvest and ship more of this delicious fruit to supermarkets!
6. Celebrated Nationally
National Rainier Cherry Day happens every July 11th. It’s not well-documented how long this celebration has gone on, but it aligns well with the peak of the Rainier cherry crop in Washington State and is a good time to find the premium Rainier cherry on sale at grocery stores. We hope that your National Rainier Cherry Day is filled with delicious Rainier cherries from Stemilt. They’ll only be in season for a few more weeks!
7. Fresh Picked to Freshly Eaten
7. Fresh Picked to Freshly EatenRainier cherries are most often eaten fresh, but also make a great ingredient in sweet and savory summer recipes. From appetizers to fancy desserts, there are so many great cherry recipes that feature Rainier cherries as a main ingredient. Get inspiration for using Rainier cherries in new ways on our National Rainier Cherry Day Pinterest board.
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10 Comments. Leave new
I just picked up a bag of Cherries. And I try to grow Every thing that produces Seeds.
I’m in Texas and I have a bag now. Just finished eating them and they are everything their supposed to be. My Ground PH in my lowes Meter reads 6.9-7.5. And moisture is high! As I’ve installed a micro system I designed my self with parts from Lowes. My Japanese Cherry Trees never took off and I had 6 of them But they’ve only been in the ground 2 months and I think there slow starters. But these Rainers will be in the ground sometime in the next couple days!
Hi Randall,
Thanks for sharing this experience with our cherries. Our cherries are produced from existing trees rather than seeds, so I’m not certain that your seeds will produce a tree with edible fruits. But I love that you are going to give it a try! Best of luck.
What’s my favorite thing about Rainier cherries? Everything!!! And I have no recipes-I eat them right out of the bag….usually on the way home from the market! Every summer, I look forward to finding those gorgeous red and yellow chunks of heaven for the first time, and was so happy to find some yesterday. They are sooo delicious!! Thank you for growing them for me ?
You are welcome – we are so glad you are enjoying our Rainier cherries!
Who needs s recipe? They’re too good right out of hand to waste in a recipe ?
You are so right, Iris! Glad you are enjoying!
Hi Brianna, hope you can help me. I have 2 Rainier cherry trees that were given to me and they are so tall that we cannot pick many for ourselves. I am guessing the trees are about 15 feet tall. I do know a 12 foot ladder doesn’t help much. May question is….can I top out these trees to get more lateral branches that we can reach? Right now, I have tied a lot of the branches down as far as I can to the ground without breaking the branch. Then I plan to tighten each of them once a month to get them to grow sideways or laterally. Am I wasting my time? Should I just go ahead and top them out? And last of all, when should I top them out if that is my only choice. Thanks, Linda Matz
Hi Linda, your question is a good one, but better for an expert on pruning. I would recommend reaching out to Washington State University and their tree fruit extension: http://www.tfrec.wsu.edu/
The worst thing about Rainier cherries??? When the season is over and they are all gone. Boo hoo
I live in Texas and it seems like they are only here for a few weeks.
Just can’t get enough of this wonderful little cherry.
Need to see how well they can.
Hi Janis! Thanks for your note. We love Rainier cherries too. I’ve never canned with them before, but do let us know how it works if you do!