TheDerek,
Cherries are in general super easy to root from new growth soft wood cuttings. Out of the last batch of green wood cuttings that were leafed out of cherry I did I rooted over half. I took 6 inch cuttings that were all new growth and left two leaves on top and pulled the other leaves off. I used clonex rooting gel and dipped the bottom inch making sure at least two leaf nodules were in that spot. Rooted them in sand with a glass jar turned over them to control humidity and a grow light sitting on top of them. I’ve never done hardwood cuttings. I’m not sure what the propagation laws in the United States are about the prairie cherries but you need to find out before you root 100 of them… I can tell you I kill about 50 carmine Jewell suckers a year in my orchard to keep them under control. When they hit a certain age roughly year 6 on some of mine give or take depending on plants and location they start suckering profusely! Sour cherries are super easy to graft in general. I think montmorency is as easy to graft as apples or pears. Sweet cherries on the other hand have not been the easiest thing for me in Kansas. Technically I’m not supposed to grow sweet cherries at all because all the conditions are in favor of me failing at it. I did graft sweet cherries for practice last year and here is how I did it Sweet cherry grafts. There are people that graft sweet cherries all the time but as you know for those of us in less than perfect conditions sweet cherries are just a pet project for us. Back in 2014 these were the instructions I gave on another forum on rooting cuttings in a few threads. I should also say it’s always good to get a second opinion like this one Home Fruit Growing propagation or a third opinion because I only got 50% takes last time with cherries but of course that may depend on the cherries more so than my method. So here were the posts or responses. Note that in those days I used 3-4" of rooting gel which is really overkill but very effective. so only a couple of inches are sticking out. More area with buds dipped in rooting gel = more likelihood of rooting.
“I suspect your problem is humidity or in this case the lack of humidity. I have never rooted kiwi cuttings but I have grown them and have rooted lots of fruit tree cuttings. What I do is take a bunch of pots and fill them with moist sand. I mix the sand with perlite if I feel like it. Take a bunch of new green growth off of the kiwi in 6 inch pieces. Make sure it’s not old woody growth it needs to be the new green growth to root properly. Using clippers I would take off all leaves besides the top two. I would Dip the bottom 3-4” in clonex rooting gel. I would Take a pencil and poke a hole down in the sand and stick the cutting in firming the sand up around it. I would Make sure to wear gloves and don’t get the rooting gel on me. I would Get a bunch of glass jars and turn them over the cuttings and push down in the sand of the pots to control humidity similarly to the concept of using a mister. I would Lay the grow light or any fluorescent light on top of the jars. That method has worked for me to root a lot of different bushes and it takes roughly 8 weeks to develop roots."
" Yes 8-10 weeks until they root. You can see the roots coming out the bottom of the pot and then its time to pull the jarsI use that method during spring or summer when new growth is easy to come by. Maybe use a heat mat to warm them if I have new growth now and it’s getting cool inside where I start them. I don’t know that climate you live in. I always start my plants like that in a basement. I Keep the sand moist. That’s my method but I can’t advise you what to do but it works for me."
“You will need a 5 gallon bucket of sand, bottle of clonex rooting hormone, old jars, lots of pots. I fill a pot with sand and poke a pencil in it and make a hole, dip the cutting in rooting hormone and stick it in the damp sand… Push the sand in around the cutting. Stick the jar over the cutting in the sand to control humidity. When you have all the pots filled and covered lay a grow light on top of the jars. Typically within a couple of months you will have so many trees you wont know what to do with them. I prefer taking my cuttings from new growth in the spring and not dormant cuttings when I use this method. leave top two leaves on the cutting. This works for cherries etc… The sand allows roots to develop quickly.”