Growing cherries in Virginia

[mroot]

It depends on the type of cherry. Tart cherries are resistant to brown rot, you may be able to get away with not spraying them. As child we had tart cherries and never sprayed and got some nice crops.

Sweet cherries are a different matter. Brown rot is a real problem. You may have a few years before the rot shows up but eventually you will need to spray to control it. BlackGold and WhiteGold are good sweet cherry choices for your area and for the Eastern United States. I would take a look at the Eastern cherry thread most of information there will apply to growing cherries in Virginia.

Eastern Sweet Cherries

Interesting sweet cherry article shown below. This article is interesting to us in Kansas because bacterial canker is a problem here as well like in the east. https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/files/Research_Center/NW_Mich_Hort/Training_Pruning_Varities/SweetCherryVarietiesEasternUS_2004.pdf “Sweet Cherry Varieties for Eastern U.S. By: Robert L. “Bob” Andersen, Professor of Horticulture, Dept. of Horticultural Sciences, N.Y.S.A.E.S., Cornell University, Geneva, NY 14456 Briners - Sweet cher…

And some more information in this follow up thread:

Reviving the Eastern Sweet Cherry Thread

I have quite a few cherry trees here and looking to graft or replace a couple losers. Wanted to revive this thread to see what has done well or not well for the eastern cherry growers. From what has fruited here the Cornel varieties and the soft varieties like Black Tartarian have somewhat done well for me. Rot hits them, but not out of control. LAPINS is on it’s way out. Has not set a single fruit and has radically uncontrollable growth. It’s not something you are going to keep small. BING …