I propagated Gisela 5 from green cuttings this year. That method did work quite effordless. I took cuttings in july, dipped in rooting hormone and put them in a container. My potting soil is a pine bark mix, which prevents over watering. After that I watered the mix and covered it with a clear plastic bag. The container was placed in a shady spot and not touched for 2 months. 6 out of 8 rooted, so G5 seems to be resonably easy to root fron green cuttings. Don’t know if other methods work as well.
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my gisela 5 root cutting just sprouted leaves from below the surface! I used this protocol:
late february cutting, 15cm length, 10-12mm diameter, stuck into medium on bottom heat about 70F with 4-6cm exposed. I used promix HP. I wrapped the proximal end (exposed end) with wax tape and some wax dribbled in to plug up the end. under grow lights. under a humidity dome for the first month then exposed with daily watering. no hormones (the paper tried a few levels of BAP and found that no BAP was best).
leaves sprouted at about day 39
I’m currently reading Hartmann & Kester’s Plant Propagation and I’m in the root cuttings chapter so I’m actually learning about this stuff after the fact. The bit from the paper about not using BAP makes more sense now: In general root-promoting hormones inhibit shooting, and shoot-promoting hormones inhibit rooting. With a cutting like this you need both rooting and shooting. Different species react differently though. This also means I’m not out of the woods yet, it’s possible I have a shoot and no roots, although I think rooting is easier than shooting for gisela from the success % in the paper.
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so I just finished reading “sweet cherries” by lang, long and kaiser
they specifically addressed sweetheart on g5: sweetheart is an extremely vigorous and precocious scion so it’s usually inappropriate on g5 because the level of fruit set and vigor get out of control. commercial growers don’t want this level of fruit set because cherries aren’t usually thinned and the high fruit set reduces cherry size and cherry size is the #1 determinant of the price they can sell cherries for. so sweetheart on g3 is probably the correct choice and I’d guess that someone, either raintree or their grower, knew this when they set up their catalog but they didn’t note this in the description
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G5 wouldn’t work for sweetheart in a commercial orchard due to fruit sizing issues. It should work fine in a home orchard where fruit size doesn’t matter much. The tendency of over setting may actually be an advantage if you experience problems with pollination or tend to get poor fruit set. If you’re not selling fruit the yield is more important than fruit size… 10 lbs of small fruit is better than 1 lb of large fruit.
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I tend to agree. I don’t think over-setting will be a problem in a region that struggles to set fruit in the first place. Is there a place that sells Sweetheart scion? It would be convenient to graft it to my White Gold on Gisela 5.
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Burnt Ridge and Fruitwood nursery offer sweet cherry scionwood but Sweetheart isn’t one of their offerings. I am afraid it’s rather late in the season to buy scionwood… I imagine that most places are out of stock or have really low inventories. You might try starting a thread asking for Sweetheart scionwood or look at Scott’s Reference list for scionwood in the link below.
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I am not in a hurry this year. I have too many apples and pear grafts to keep me busy atm. I am still deciding between Sweetheart and Benton. Both are patented, but I have room for one more cherry, at most. I like the later bloom of Benton, but the later ripening of Sweetheart. The later bloom would probably benefit fruit set in my climate, but later ripening means better weather when they are sweetening up. We don’t reliably get 70F+ days and clear skies until about a week into July.
My question is how much support the tree will require on G3, compared to G5. Out of control vigor is probably more of a problem in a trellis.
I was reading about a high density training system for cherries, where they are only grown from the base of last year’s growth. All of the second year wood is pruned away. Supposedly it makes for the largest cherries, but yield per tree is greatly reduced.
Has anybody tried this pruning method? Would G5 be a good rootstock to try it out? I am not too concerned with yields, since the local markets are loaded with 20+ Brix cherries for most of the season. For me, sweet cherries are almost a novelty to grow, but I would love to grow a good pie cherry for yields.
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It would help if you were more specific about what training system you are using. There are several high density systems for cherries. SSA, UFO, and KGB come to mind and there are others.
On the forum it seems a fair number of people have tried KGB. The required rootstock varies depending the system with dwarf, semi-dwarf, and standard sized rootstocks being used in high density systems depending on the system.
This publication show the differences between the systems and how train and prune each system. It also shows what size of rootstock can be used with each system (in table 1).
I haven’t used any of these systems but I would like to use the TSA system if I can figure out how to produce enough branching.
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from that same book: in the northwest, cherry trees generally grow unsupported on all rootstocks except gisela 6. the training wires in the fancy training systems are not for tree support they’re just places to tie
I don’t think sweetheart is patented. benton is and it expires april 2023 USPP15847P2 - Cherry tree ‘PC7146-8’ - Google Patents
I’ll be getting sweetheart on g3 next year from raintree, after all! I’ll be cutting it low so I might have some extra depending on what I want to do as far as my own future g5 grafting
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Sweetheart is patented until 4-7-2025, unfortunately. I would have grafted both by now if they were not.
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sweetheart was released in 1994 without US patent, maybe during a time before summerland started getting US patents. this patent grant lists it as a seed parent and identifies it as unpatented
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My mistake. I was looking at an offspring.
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@carot I found your success inspiring. I combined your method with information I found in an article to start 4 Gisela 5 green cuttings. Hopefully they will root for me too. I am attaching the article below so people without any experience rooting cuttings may give the method a try.
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Tested this method again with good success. In fact I am rooting some more right now. If you use a plant container, put in a medium with good drainage, water in the cuttings, cover everything with a transparent plastic bag and place the container protected from direct sunlight you should be good.
I didn’t need to rewater. Its pretty much a do and forget kind of method.
I hope you achieve great results
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I am glad you were able to repeat your first success. I think I need to take a few more cuttings 
. I also like as you pointed out it is a " a do and forget kind of method."
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Will anyone sell some gisela 5 or similar dwarf or semi dwarf cherry rootstock? I have 3 sweet cherry im trying to copy.
But my whole home orchard is semi dwarf apple and peach. With a row of what i envision to be all be similar sized cherry. I would like to make a copy of all 3 cherry.(currently dwarf)
So 3-5 rootstock would be perfect!
Ive spent 2 days online trying to find some . I found my apple and peach rootstock but no luck other than mazzard and mahaleb 90%+ trees
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Your best choice is to buy Krymsk 5 from Grandpa’s Orchard.
https://www.grandpasorchard.com/Tree/Prunus-rootstock-Krymsk-5-Semi-Dwarf-rootstock
The shipping calculator doesn’t work correctly for rootstock only orders as per their note on there website.
“SHIPPING CHARGES NOTE: We will usually adjust your shipping charges when ordering rootstock by itself as our shipping calculator does not calculate correctly for rootstock. When ordered with trees, we can ship in the same box for no extra charges. When ordered by itself, it may ship for less. If you have questions, contact us.”
https://www.grandpasorchard.com/Tree-Type/Rootstock-for-Backyard-Nurserymen
For more information on the dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstock situation look at this thread.
my g5 cutting from up thread is now a 3ft bush, it’ll probably end this season at 6ft and then I should have plenty of g5 cuttings next winter (dec 2024) so if you want some, mark your calendars and send me a message then. they should root pretty easily
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