The phrase “growing true to seed” refers to a plant’s ability to produce offspring genetically identical to the parent when grown from seeds. This trait is common in many vegetables and annual flowers. However, for most commercially cultivated fruits, including cherries, the answer is definitively no: they do not grow true to seed. When you plant a cherry pit, the resulting tree is a unique genetic individual, not a clone of the tree that produced the fruit.
Why Cherry Seeds Are Genetically Unstable
The fundamental reason cherry seeds do not produce clones lies in their sexual reproductive biology and diverse genetic makeup. Cherry trees, like sweet cherries (Prunus avium), are heterozygous, meaning they carry a wide variety of different genes for every trait, resulting in significant genetic variation. This is the opposite of a homozygous plant, which has identical genes for a given trait.
When a cherry flower is pollinated, the seed it produces is the result of sexual reproduction, combining genetic material from two distinct parents: the mother tree that grew the fruit and the father tree that provided the pollen. For nearly all sweet cherry varieties, this process is complicated because they are self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination from a different variety to set fruit. The resulting seed contains a random mix of genes from both parents, making the seedling a new hybrid rather than an exact copy.
Even in many sour cherry varieties (Prunus cerasus), which are often self-pollinating, the seeds still exhibit genetic variability. Although the pollen comes from the same tree, the shuffling of the parent’s heterozygous genes during seed formation ensures that each seed is genetically distinct. This means that while you might get a tree, the quality of its fruit is entirely unknown and generally inferior to the parent.
The Result of Planting a Cherry Pit
Planting a cherry pit is a biological lottery, as the resulting tree will express its new, random combination of genes in unpredictable ways. The most common outcome is a tree that produces fruit that is small, lacks sweetness, or has a texture deemed undesirable for eating. This occurs because the desirable traits of commercial cherries—large size, high sugar content, and specific firmness—are complex genetic combinations that rarely reappear randomly.
A significant hurdle for the home grower is the time required before the seedling will produce fruit, known as the juvenile phase. A tree grown from a pit typically takes seven to ten years to reach maturity and begin flowering. This contrasts sharply with nursery trees, which are often grafted and can bear fruit within three to five years of planting.
However, these vigorous, genetically diverse seedlings are highly valued in the commercial industry, not for their fruit, but as rootstock. Seedlings grown from pits often develop strong, deep root systems and possess natural resistance to certain soil-borne diseases. These characteristics make them an ideal base onto which a known, high-quality variety can be grafted.
Ensuring a Specific Cherry Variety
To guarantee a tree will produce a specific, named cherry variety, such as ‘Bing’ or ‘Rainier,’ growers must bypass sexual reproduction entirely through asexual propagation. This is accomplished almost exclusively through grafting, a technique that creates a perfect genetic clone of the desired fruit-producing parent. The commercial cherry industry relies on this method to maintain consistent fruit quality.
Grafting involves physically joining a small section of wood from the desired variety, called the scion, onto the existing root system of a different tree, known as the rootstock. The scion, which usually contains several buds, is carefully cut to precisely match a corresponding cut made on the rootstock. The goal is to ensure the cambium layers—the thin, active growth tissues beneath the bark—are perfectly aligned.
When the cambium layers connect and grow together, the two pieces fuse, and the scion becomes the top part of the tree, determining the fruit produced. The rootstock remains below the graft union, supplying the roots and influencing traits like overall tree size, cold hardiness, and soil adaptability. This two-part construction allows growers to select the best root system for their orchard conditions while assuring the fruit quality of the scion is identical to the parent tree.