Sweet cherry: Compact Van
Compact Van is a high-yielding, cold-tolerant sweet cherry, with dark red, medium-large firm fruit. It is known for being precocious – i.e. bearing heavily at a relatively young age, as well as for bearing heavy annual crops.
Compact Van is a genetically identical to the Van cherry, but has been bred to be a compact size - see my description of Compact Stella for a bit more on mutational breeding.
Rootstock: Mazzard. Full-size, most popular cherry rootstock for centuries. Relatively tolerant of wet and heavy soils compared to other cherry rootstocks.
Uses: Fresh eating, and any other use you can think of - dried, juice, preserves, pies, and more.
Disease resistance: Not known for any particular susceptibility or resistance to disease, but is resistant to rain cracking.
Parentage: Open-pollinated seedling of Empress Eugenie, selected at the Summerland Research and Development Centre in BC in 1942. Van has been used in breeding programs around the world due to it’s favourable qualities.
Pollination: Not self-fertile; requires another sweet cherry of a different variety. Known as an excellent pollenizer for other cherries.
References:
Sweet Cherries: Production, Marketing, and Processing. US Department of Agriculture, 1973.
