Anyone know if I can graft a cherry onto my folks’ chokecherry tree?
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Cberry will not graft on choke cherry in my experience. Ive tried hundreds of times.
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Have you tried grafting any other prunus onto them? I have several established trees in my yard and have been curious if plums or peaches would be compatible…
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I’m interested to know as well. i have dozens of chokecherry nearby on abandoned land. im grafting several pear scions varieties. to my 8ft. volunteer mountain ash.
I think @Lucky_P might know, among others. I think it’s been covered here before, but I don’t know for sure.
I have tried other prunus the grafts did not take.
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Clark, did you try both sweet and sour cherry scion?
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I did try two types of sour cherries and neither took in my experience. Sweet cherries i cannot recall having tried those. Im going to look for my research on those.
IIRC, the cultivated cherries(sweet, tart) will not graft onto any of the American native cherries…pin, choke, or black.
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If I remember correctly I thought that chokecherries are more closely related to plums than true cherries. I grafted 3 superior plum scions to a chokecherry bush at my previous place and all 3 took and grew vigorously but I moved away last fall so I don’t know if it survived the winter.
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Nanking cherry is more closely related to plums than to true cherries… and in my limited experience will support grafts of peach and Japanese hybrid plums…severely dwarfing for peach (at least for the one i did, many years ago)
Here’s what I lifted from Wikipedia:
Description
It is a deciduous shrub, irregular in shape, 0.3–3 m (rarely 4 m) high and possibly somewhat wider. The bark is glabrous and copper-tinted black. The leaves are alternate, 2–7 cm long and 1–3.5 cm broad, oval to obovate, acuminate with irregularly serrate margins, rugose, dark green, pubescent above and tomentose below, with glandular petioles. The flowers are white or pink in a scarlet calyx, opening with or before the leaves in spring. They are reliably profuse, arranged in clusters on scarlet pedicels and are 1.5–2.0 cm in diameter. The fruit is a sweet but slightly tart drupe 5–12 mm (rarely to 25 mm) in diameter, scarlet, ripening in early summer, with a large seed. Though often called a “cherry” and superficially resembling them, Nanking cherry is closer related to plums than true cherries.[6] It prefers full sun and grows naturally in a variety of soils. It is drought-resistant, and cold-resistant to hardiness zone 2.[4][7][8]
Flowers
Leaves
Fruits
Pollen
Uses
The plant has long been widely cultivated throughout eastern Asia for its flowers and fruit.[4] It was introduced to the British Isles in 1870,[2] and the United States by the Arnold Arboretum in 1892.[9][10][11]
It is cultivated for a number of purposes. The fruit is edible, being an ingredient of juice, jam, and wine, and in pickled vegetables and mushrooms.[11] It is also grown as an ornamental plant, prized for its flowers and fruit, and pruned for bonsai, twin-trunk or clump shapes, or left upright.[10] It is used for dwarfing rootstock for other cherries. In Manchuria and the Midwest United States, the shrub is planted in hedgerows to provide a windbreak. Under cultivation, it flourishes in well-drained, slightly acidic soil.
Several cultivars are grown; examples include ‘Graebneriana’ (Germany), ‘Insularis’ (Japan and Korea), ‘Leucocarpa’ (Manchuria; white fruit), and ‘Spaethiana’ (Europe).[7]
You’ll see it is dwarfing rootstock for other cherries (as well as for plums, in my experience) and is, as Lucky says, more closely related to plums than to true cherries, so it’s unclear to me what “other cherries” it my be a useful rootstock for.
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@clarkinks and @rsivulka and @moose71
So based on this link - i tried on some wild chokecherry at my place in N Mich. This is after one summer - a couple of the cleft grafts took. But no idea if they’ll come back this year.
2022 Season Update - Grafting Pears and Plums to Wild Choke Cherry and – Oak Summit Nursery.
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