🍅 Quick take: Rainbow Cherry (Cherri Raduga) is an indeterminate, mid-early novelty bicolor cherry prized for its unusual, scalloped shape that looks like a miniature fluted blossom. The fruits run about 0.7-1 oz (20-30 g) with marbled yellow-and-rose skin and sweet, firm, juicy meat. Reviewers note the vine is an unruly grower that produces heavily when allowed to run multi-stemmed, though greenhouse growers report far superior, candy-like sweetness compared to outdoor plantings in cool short seasons. Full summary ↓
Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zones 4-5 Experience)
Mid-early, indeterminate, gorgeous bicolor cherry. The fruits are two-tone cherries with an unusual fluted form, looking almost like a tiny carved blossom. Excellent, very sweet flavor.
Started the seeds late, right at the beginning of April, but it still showed promising yield potential. Seeds sourced from Tatiana Kouchnareva.Edited February 14, 2016 by Drosera
Started the seeds late, right at the beginning of April, but it still showed promising yield potential. Seeds sourced from Tatiana Kouchnareva.Edited February 14, 2016 by Drosera
Seeds from Popenko. Grew it outdoors in the open garden. High yielder, but I really didn’t care for the flavor 🙁
Rainbow Cherry. Indeterminate, grew it in the greenhouse in the center raised bed right near the doorway. Barely pruned any suckers once the first cluster set. The vine is an absolute beast and needs plenty of elbow room. It kept pumping out fruit right under the greenhouse roof well into the tail end of the season. The individual trusses aren’t huge, but because of all the extra stems, the overall yield was great.
The fruits are bite-sized, slightly flattened yellow-and-pink bicolor gems up to 0.7-1 oz (20-30 g). Super pretty on the vine and very delicious. Juicy yet firm and snappy, with great sweetness 😋
The fruits are bite-sized, slightly flattened yellow-and-pink bicolor gems up to 0.7-1 oz (20-30 g). Super pretty on the vine and very delicious. Juicy yet firm and snappy, with great sweetness 😋
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Pruning
- 🌿 Growth Habit: Indeterminate, mid-early vine with rampant vegetative vigor. Thrives best when allowed to develop multiple stems rather than being aggressively pruned to a single leader. Easily hits greenhouse rafters.
- ⚖️ Fruit Characteristics: Petite, oblate, and gently ribbed/fluted, resembling a sculpted flower. Weight sits around 0.7 to 1 oz (20-30 g). Skin is a radiant yellow blushed with raspberry-pink streaks.
- 👅 Flavor Profile: Very sweet, juicy, and crisp when grown under protected cover or in hot sunny conditions. One grower noted dull/unfavorable flavor when grown in open ground in a cold Zone 4 climate.
- 📈 Yield: Excellent total production driven by high truss counts across multiple side stems, though individual clusters are modest in size.
- 🌎 Reviewed In: USDA Zones 4 and 4/5 (Central Russia and Tatarstan).
