Cherry leaves yellowing

General Fruit Growing
#1

Background-

I have a Late Duke cherry on Krymsk 5 rootstock. Dukes are tart/sweet hybrids. I planted it last year and it did okay until the middle of the Summer. I then noticed the leaves yellowing on their margins. As time passed the entire leaf would turn yellow. The entire tree was effected. The Krymsk rootstock had suckered and for awhile the only green leaves were the leaves on the sucker.

The tree leafed out normally this year and looked good until around 7/3/2021 when I noticed the margins of the leaves started yellowing again. It was after some heavy rains. I have tart and sweet cherries nearby on various rootstocks including Krymsk 5 and none of them show these symptoms- all of them look completely normal.

Here are some pictures that I took today 7/30/2021-

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A picture of the leaves of the Krymsk 5 rootstock sucker.

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I have considered several possibilities.

  1. Captan spray burn
    I don’t think this is the problem since no other cherries are effected and the last Captan spray was 5/30/2021.

  2. Too much fertilizer
    I think this was a possibility the first year but this year I was pretty careful and I fertilize fairly early in the Spring so I think this is also unlikely.

  3. Virus in the tree
    I think this is a possibility. I contacted @JamesN . He bought the exact same cultivar/rootstock combination from the same supplier in the same year I did. His tree shows no symptoms like my tree. However, his climate is very different and probably less stressful than mine.

  4. Some type of root disease
    I haven’t done any digging to inspect the roots yet. I wouldn’t think it would explain why the rootstock sucker is less effected but who knows.

So at this point I am looking for ideas as to what is causing this. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

#2

What about a possibility of graft incompatibility making it difficult for nutrient uptake? Just a wild guess.

1 Like
#3

Thanks for that suggestion. I haven’t thought of that possibility.

Also maybe some type of bacterial disease? The fungicide sprays wouldn’t be effective for a bacterial disease.

I though about collar rot but I think that would kill a small tree quickly. Maybe Phytophthora root rot … I think that can cause leaf yellowing and early foliage dropping.

#4

Last year I bought 5 cherry trees. 3 I pulled out because they started to leaf out and then the leaves turned brown and wilted into nothing so I had a stick with no leaves. It was weirdly still green inside with those trees though. Of the two that did leaf out with leaves that stayed one is growing slow but is doing fine but the Utah Giant is doing what yours is doing. My Utah Giant is grafted on newroot-1 and not your rootstock but same problem. When it was early summer a lot of the new growth was yellow but now if I were to take a picture of the tree it is completely green. It changes back and fourth and am not sure what is causing it.

1 Like
#5

Mine too.

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I have been removing two leaves a day for weeks. I thought it was just all the rain.
Now I am thinking I should add liquid iron. What do you think?