Cherry varieties and SWD

[jared159]

Has anyone found any cherry varieties that don’t have issues with SWD or get much less of it compared to other varieties?

[steveb4]

i havent seen them in my romance series tart cherries and i don’t spray with insecticides . only fungicides. yet I’ve found some in my black currants growing right next to them.

[TNHunter]

I have a lapins cherry since 2018… no fruit yet.

I added 5 grafts of Montmorency to it a couple springs ago… and one of those produced a very nice ripe cherry on May 12 this past spring.

It was delicious.

Our SWD normally start showing up first week in July … with the ripening of wild blackberries. Before that no problems.

I am not sure if Montmorency is known to be an early variety… but it sure was here.

I am in southern middle TN. z7b.

TNHunter

[steveb4]

they are about a week after Romeo cherry here. Romeo is the latest ripening of the romance series i grow.

[mroot]

I don’t think there are any cherries that are resistant to SWD or cherry flies. The insects may prefer a certain species or cultivar over others but none of them are safe. With some early ripening fruits you may be able to escape SWD in your area.

For defense you can bag the fruit, spray Surround, spray an insecticide, or bag the entire tree. Bagging individual fruits isn’t really practical with cherries. Bagging the entire tree can work in arid and dry areas. It doesn’t work in the East because the fine mesh of the tree bag increases the humidity around the tree and makes brown rot worse. You may be able to take this approach in Omaha.

Bagging entire trees, or dancing on the rain slick precipice of madness

To consolidate discussion of bagging entire trees, experiences/results, etc. I first attempted to bag some entire trees last year. This is my second year at this and I am no expert. Here is a little bit of my final review for my 2020 cherry bagging project on Juliet cherries. Bottom line… I feel like I had huge success. We had a couple days of solid rain right when I had originally planned to harvest and that resulted in some splitting and a little subsequent rot, but I lost probably only a …

[jared159]

Thanks for the information. I am trying to decide between trees or the cherry shrubs. It looks like some of the sweet cherry varieties might escape it since they ripen early. I’ve heard that SWD likes high humidity so maybe the tree varieties are better because the grass can be mowed under the tree.