The Delicious and Powerfully Beneficial Mandarin Melon Berry

Formerly known as Cudrania tricuspidata, the botanical name for che fruit is now Maclura tricuspidata. Also known as Mandarin Melon Berry, this seedless fruit is an unpretentiously powerful little berry that’s easy to grow, delicious to eat, and is bird and pest resistant!

Sounds like a winner to us!

What Does Che Fruit Look Like?

Related to mulberries of the moraceae family che has a thicker bumpy outer skin that looks like a cross between a mulberry and raspberry.

Che fruit is rounder and a little larger than mosts raspberries, and with tougher skin. However, like raspberries, che doesn’t travel well and doesn’t have a long shelf life, which means it rarely makes it to grocery stores due to travel time and stress. So if you haven’t yet heard of this delightful fruit, that’s probably why.

If you want to enjoy a che fruit, the best way is to grow it yourself or look for local farmers and market gardeners who might be growing it.

What Does Che Fruit Taste Like?

The fruit flavor and texture of che fruit, most closely resembles fresh figs, or a cross between a watermelon and a fig, if you can imagine that. Hence the name Mandarin melon berry.

Reminiscent of its relative, the mulberry, che has a similar persistent stem at the end that you can hold while you nibble the fruit off. Che has thicker, bumpy outer skin that’s edible, giving way to a juicy, softer interior, with the same gentle red color throughout.

Che fruit is a little firmer than raspberries at picking but the ripe fruit can quickly become soft, with and a squishy texture and taste resembling that of a fresh figs.

Seedless Che by Edible Landscaping

We have the seedless che exclusive to Edible Landscaping in Virginia, from whom we also got our passionflower. The seeded varieties are said to have three to six small brown seeds per fruit, and these are small fruits, so best to plant the seedless che fruit.

Birds Don’t Bother Seedless Che, But Deer Will Eat the Leaves

Unlike blueberries, birds won’t bother your seedless che, according to Edible Landscaping. That has also been our experience with our seedless che, however, California Rare Fruit Growers, CRFG, says that birds are attracted to the ripe che fruit. So I suppose it depends on what birds frequent your yard and garden.

Perhaps there’s a different allure to birds of the seeded che…? We’re not sure so either way, if you plant che keep an eye out for whether you’ll need bird deflectors once your che trees fruit.

Deer will ravage both leaves and fruit, especially the leaves of tender new plants. After we planted our second young che tree the deer promptly ate it to the ground. Fortunately, they haven’t touched the fruit or our first tree so far, perhaps due to the Milorganite fertilizer that’s also a deer deterrent. Or, perhaps it’s that they prefer the leaves and bark only.

Che Fruit trees, like mulberries, are hardy and easy to grow, requiring no spraying. Just keep the deer away.

The Enchanting Che Fruit

What is a Che Fruit?

A che resembles a thick skinned raspberry that mated with a lychee. Che is a “collective fruit” or “multiple fruit”, fruit. Like the mulberry, che is not actually a berry at all.

Collective fruits are formed when multiple tiny clustered flowers each form a fruit that grows together. Thus the bumps you see on a che were each once individual flowers that became individual fruits that joined together to form one larger fruit as a collective.

Examples of Multiple Fruits:

• Che
• Fig (yes… the interior is where the flowers are!)
• Mulberry
• Noni (Morinda citrifolia)
• Osage orange (non edible, but good for rootstock)
• Pineapple

The Flowers in the Fruit

Do you see the squiggly black lines or dots in the che fruits below? That’s actually the former flowers’ stigmas. So each bump was a former ovary in a single tiny flower that became a tiny fruit, that then merged into a cluster with other fruits.

SOURCE: BackyardNature.net

Che Fruit Common Names

• Che
• Chinese Che
• Chinese Mulberry
• Cudrang
• Mandarin Melon Berry
• Silkworm tree (mulberry and Che leaves are the primary food for silkworms)

Che Family

• Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis)
• Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus)
• Fig (Ficus spp.)
• Mulberry (Morus spp.)
• African Breadfruit (Treculis africana)

Che Origin – Native to Asia

• Eastern Asia
• China to Nepal, sub-Himalayas
• Japan

Growing Che Fruit

• CARE: Minimal
• COLD HARDY: Can withstand temperatures to -20° F
• DISEASE: None
• DROUGHT: tolerant, but water in dry season
• FERTILIZE: Annually in late spring 10-10-10 NPK, or alternative natural fertilizer, of homemade compost tea.
• PESTS: Deer; birds less likely
• PRODUCTION:
  • 4-8 years to fruiting, depending on conditions; better soil and environment will produce sooner.
  • Mature trees may produce hundreds of pounds of fruit per season
• PROPAGATION:
  • FROM SEED: readily grown from seed if sown soon after extraction, but takes up to 10 years to bear.
  • FROM SOFTWOOD CUTTINGS: taken in midsummer and treated with rooting hormone.
  • GRAFTED: The che is easily grafted to Osage orange rootstock using a cleft or whip-and-tongue graft.
• PRUNING:
  • Prune regularly to control shape.
  • Prune last season’s grow to half the length.
  • Trim remaining branchlets to about 50%.
  • Trees grafted onto Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) rootstock grow more robust and upright, no staking needed.
• SOIL: Fine in poor soil; best in warm, well-drained, loamy soil.
• HARDY: Zones 6-9

Harvesting Che Fruit

Che trees begin to bear at an early age and a mature female tree is said to be able to produce as much as 400 pounds of fruit in one season, and ripening in fall.

However, our 11 year old che has yet to produce anywhere near that volume of fruit. While we do have difficult growing conditions in that location, it’s hard to imagine that much poundage from one che tree.

Unlike mulberries and blueberries, the ripe fruits do not separate easily from the tree and must be individually picked. It is important that the fruits be thoroughly ripe to be at their best. A darker shade of red with some blackening of the skin is a good indication of full ripeness

We use Milorganite to help deter deer, though unfortunately, we did not use it for our newly planted che before the deer devoured it. 😔

Growth and Appearance Che Tree

• APPEARANCE:
  • Spreading bush or small tree
  • Thorns when young
• HEIGHT: 25 ft. (Female trees are larger and stronger than male trees)
• SPACE: 14′ circle

TIP: Do not plant near sidewalk or driveway as fruit that drops will stain light concrete.

Che Flowers

• Blooms in June
• POLLINATING:
  • Dioecious – male and female plants are different
  • Monoecious – EdibleLandscaping.com has an exclusive seedless self-pollinating variety; do not plant around male seeded variety
• APPEARANCE: Flowers are green and pea-sized clusters

The Che Fruit

• APPEARANCE: like a cross between a raspberry, mulberry and lychee
  • COLOR: pale red to maroon color inside and out
  • SIZE: grape sized at 1-2″ in diameter,
  • TEXTURE: Bumpy squishy exterior when fully ripe; soft juicy interior
• FLAVOR: che fruit flavor is a blend of fig and raspberry, with a hint of watermelon
• RIPENS:
  • July in deep South
  • September-October in average zone 7
• SEEDS:
  • none on the seedless variety
  • 3-6 small brown seeds per fruit (seeded variety)
• SWEETNESS: Sugar content similar to figs

Che fruit needs to ripen on the tree and be picked ripe and even soft and slightly squishy. Subsequently, it does not last long, so when the harvest rolls in you’ll need to get busy preserving it in preserves, juices, smoothies and baked goods to eat fresh and to freeze.

You can bake che fruit breads in the same way you might make blueberry coffee cake or loaf.

RESOURCES:
CRFG.org
EdibleLandscaping.com

For more on the medicinal benefits of che fruit.^[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384656/#B11-molecules-24-00567

Let us know if you’re growing che. We’d love to hear how it’s going for you.