My Juliet production mirrors yours, Steve.
But the size of mine is quite shorter. It is about 8 ft tall. I have not fertilized it much at all.
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i only really fertilized with manure the 2nd and third year and then this spring. just kept mulched with woodchips to keep weeds down. these things are beasts here. they must like my clay.
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Ours have grown really well. Again 4th season on them here. Planted them fall of 2020. They were dormant. In four years they grew about 7’ tall in three seasons. Here’s a pic from yesterday:
I just mowed the tops so they are only about 5’ tall now in the pic. They have filled in pretty good. I originally planted them 15’ apart, then last spring (beginning of season three) moved suckers in the middle of the empty spaces between the mother plants, so effectively the spacing became 7.5’. Some of the better places in the rows have started to become a solid hedge.
For the first few years, I didn’t think it would be possible to grow them as a solid hedge (without something like plastic mulch, or a weed barrier cloth) because we don’t have the time to hand weed them, and the suckers prevent applying herbicide under the bushes. So I was just about resigned to grow them as short trees.
But I had a eureka moment. Suckers off my Balaton cherry trees are very hard to kill (read impossible). Apples on MM111 are the same way. The suckers won’t die. In those cases I realized I want the suckers dead, but in the Juliet cherries, I want the suckers to live. I was afraid of killing them till I realized, like other suckers, they really won’t die anyway.
So I just started using a directed pre-emergent herbicide during dormancy, then directed herbicide sprays at the weeds (after harvest). It doesn’t matter if you get some herbicide on the suckers because they won’t die anyway. I’m talking about non-systemic contact herbicides, not something systemic like glyphosate, which would probably kill not only the suckers, but the mother plants as well. So far, I’m reasonably pleased with the weed control.
We did have to pull some bindweed off the suckers by hand before harvest, but as the bushes get thicker, they seem to be choking out the bindweed.
We are running into some of the bushes having random dead spots. I don’t know what that’s about. They are also fairly susc. to cherry leaf spot, so they need to be kept sprayed to keep the cherry leaves on. But in this early stage of the game, I’m pretty happy with them.
Last week I planted one more row of Romance cherries. This time Cupid. The plants are tiny, like the Juliet were when they started. Also pretty stressful on the plants because of the 90F temps and desiccating winds. Watering them every other day.
I think it helps to have loose weed free soil when planting these. I’d recommend tilling before planting for maximum growth and suckering. Or at least start killing the weeds several months ahead of time with some means (solarizing, herbicides, etc.)
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Juliet does very well here as well just like carmine jewell. They both sucker and produce loads of cherries. Since they are both heavy feeders they need some manure or other slow release fertilizer from day one. I use manure for fertilizer top dressed with woodchips. Juliet cherries are slightly larger than carmine jewell Carmine Jewell Cherry Yields increasing with age .As @Olpea pointed out cherry leaf spot is the only real problem to contend with.
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One Juliet is the only sour Cherry I have.The Carmine Jewel that was growing beside,was given away,making room for two Pluot trees.There are a few fruit staying on.More than in earlier years.
@Olpea
Is the fruit mechanically harvested or a U-pick?
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We do Upick on those. Tart cherries seem to have a decent demand around here. Nothing like fresh peaches, but still decent demand. They aren’t available in the stores around here.
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Do you have a pitter customers can use, or do you provide that service? My biggest gripe with the sour cherries is pitting the damn things… Ive got an old fashioned crank style pitter that does a decent job but it mangles the fruit in the process and hand pitting is so labor intensive, it sucks.
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I would like to add that wowza isn’t getting dead spots or tips dying back. It ripens about a week later. It would be a good addition to extend the season a touch. Cherries are nice size too. Even though the first year i accidentally mowed it to the ground. In the fourth year it is outproducing Juliet.
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How is it taste wise in comparison?
I thought last year Juliet was a little better but this year it tastes about the same as Juliet. It’s been really dry and both have more sugar than normal. It’s close enough in flavor this year.
Things could change with time and it may not perform as well in other places.
Here Juliet can be harvested now but I plan to give it 2-3 weeks as I like the cherries darker. Wowza is not ripe yet.
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We have an old crank style pitter too. I agree it does mangle the fruit. But my wife and I decided we don’t need a beautiful looking cherry pie, just one that tastes good. So we give up some appearance for speed of pitting.
In the past, I’ve purchased the 4 at a time plunge pitters and sold those at my farmstand for the same price I paid for them. The disadvantage to these pitters is that occasionally they don’t remove one of the pits. So I recommend emptying the seed cavity after every time it’s plunged to make sure there are 4 stones in the bottom of the cavity.
Then there are one at a time plunge pitters. These are slow but people use them. Most of my customers get family members to help, so it doesn’t take as long as someone pitting solo.
Here is a pie my wife made a couple weeks ago with the crank pitter, with me doing the pitting/cranking. It’s not too ugly, imo.
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i almost bit on wowza but im glad i didnt. i figured it would be hard to beat Juliet in taste and im getting a few suckers every year off mine so ill just spread them around. this year i got some burnt tips on my cherries despite spraying. is that blossom blight that does that? do you cut them out? i did with the ones i could reach but my Juliet’s are 12’ monsters. had brown rot move in in last years wet , muggy summer. couldn’t spray enough. still salvaged about 80% of the crop.
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I’m not sure if it’s blossom blight but it looks like it to me. It’s more than just tip damage from weather. Juliet is awesome I agree. Even if it sometimes has low production. Yes you should remove dead stems, just in case it’s brown rot blossom blight. I llke you don’t always get all of them.
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ive sprayed with immunox 2xs but the damage is done. hasnt spread but i will get the ladder and prune out the damage this morning. c.j and lutowka rose are the only ones not affected. didnt help i missed copper spray this spring.
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Steve,
Immunox works well for cherry leaf spot. I don’t think it works well with brown rot blossom blight. I think Propiconazole like Bonide Infuse would be more effective.
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well i got in close to prune out infected wood and the entire tree is infected in my 2 juliets and romeo. unfortunately i had to prune out 1/3rd of each tree. there were entire twig die offs as well as some gummosis at the browned flower buds. lots of small yellow leaves that never developed and the trees leaves in general are 1/3rd the size they should be. overall they look pretty sick. im not even sure if its all the same pathogens. i see possibly twig blight, blossom blast, gummosis. if i pruned everything that looked sick id have a stump on the juliets and romeo… c.j only had several strikes and a lusher canopy. lutowka rose is just starting to show signs of being affected. i wont get any proper fungicide to fight it until jun. 24. im limited on what’s available locally. i had to order it. i have daconil but it says not to apply to a tree in fruit . at this point i might try it to save these trees. its been a very dry spring. i cant even imagine how bad it would have been in a warm wet spring.
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Daconil has a long post harvest interval that’s why it can only be sprayed before bloom time.
If it were me, I would spray Daconil pre-bloom next spring.
I think your trees may get both canker and blight.
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well i sacrificed what was left of my crop and sprayed anyway. supposed to hit 90 today and near 100 tom. and 90 2 days after that. i figured that with the infection and large pruning would stress the trees and probably abort the crops anyway. better to have something effective on it right away. thanks for the advice. i will definitely be ready for battle next year. at least i got a nice open center on them now as most dieback was in the highest center of the trees.
i usually use daconil prebloom with my dormant spray but i was busy and missed it. wont next year. i learned my lesson.
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Is that unusually hot there,for this time of year?