Was asked recently in a PM about our experience growing low chill cherries. Thought that it would make a good thread on the forum so im posting my response to the questions asked here.
Ive been playing with cherries for quite some years now. Rootstock is the biggest issue for us. Cherries are just not super happy with high temps and MUST have a vigorous rootstock to push new growth even as they are taking damage during the hottest parts of the summer.
The first trees we planted were on mazzard and colt. Neither made in thru the first summer. Both mazzard and colt are traditional cherry rootstocks and are not happy at all with either our soil or our heat.
The next set of trees we put in 2012 was on 3CR178 (Z-Dwarf) and have performed quite well as far as surviving the summer heat. Something that we have noticed is a susceptibility to canker. We have lost one sizable tree to it and its looking like we might loose another also. Despite this its a root that does work here. Its likely that the difference is that it is a plum/cherry hybrid. The plum brings with it tolerance for heavy soils that we have here.
We are working with a number of other rootstocks that are showing good promise but wont know for sure for a number of years. We are also working on trials of plum rootstock with a interstem for cherry. This seems to be a very vigorous combination and may hold the best promise for us.
Bottom line tho…even tho we have large trees here (which is quite a accomplishment in Phoenix) the fruit set so far is pathetic. And ive yet to hear from anyone anywhere that either MR or RL set well. So this all may be a total waste of time and money. Just thought id warn ya.
amadio good afternoon, at this very moment I wrote about different cherry rootstocks, can read the information here:
this is the facebook of a nursery that is in the south of Spain, in its publication the day July 6 shows cherries royal helen and royal edie of genetics zaigers (also has pictures of royal Tioga ).