I guess fruitnut will be the first one to taste nadia.
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Because of bad weather I have to wait three years to taste any fruit off my trees. It was an eternity! Although when I finally did it was better than I thought possible.Some already think it could be yet another glorified plum, and it may be? It sure looks like a giant cherry though! I bet the flavor is outstanding. I may not get a taste this year, one never knows. I though expect over 100 other stone fruits, so I’m not worried about it. This will be the first year I get tart cherries from Carmine Jewel. I’m looking forward to that too.White Gold sweet will produce for the first time too. Those should be outstanding.
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Male bumblebees don’t have a sting, so they are harmless. Females do have a sting, but, unlike bees, they don’t leave it inside your skin, so pain goes away faster.
That’s the temperature sensor that controls the fans, heater, and evaporative cooler pad. It’s covered with Al foil to reduce the effects of direct sun on the reading. If not covered it reads 10-15F too high on sunny days.
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That’s good to know. There are a lot of males born at times. All they want to do is leave so they spend the day bouncing off the walls and roof. And yes the bite isn’t as bad as honeybees or wasp.
Patty you probably haven’t had much chilling yet. That would hold back your trees. Hopefully you’ll get more chilling and rain yet this spring.
My chilling period was Oct 24 to Jan 13 for about 1300 Utah hrs. Those are the fully effective hrs for everything. For most of my stuff chilling was adequate by early Dec.
Certainly far, far more than we have had (or will have), but this winter we’ve had a fair amount of chill hours. Certainly compared to last winter, which was essentially non-existent. It was 37 degrees at the house today, and I’m sure out in the yard we had frost and temps down to 32 degrees. So for us, looks like we’ll actually have fruit set on our higher chill fruits this year. Here’s to hoping.
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Here my tree today. I should have weighed branches down. I’m going to remove the central leader. Some of the scaffolds are not at the best angles. The worst ones near the top though will be pruned out . I’ll be doing this in a couple weeks.
Here is the spot that looks troubling to me.
It could be sunburn too, and now looking closer some of the other scaffolds have bad areas too, damn!
I was thinking of removing the branch and using the thinner branch on the left (it’s at a great angle too). It is in the general same direction. The central leader cut will leave 6 branches on the tree. That very low branch will be cut out. So 5 scaffolds will remain. I will try and pull them down some this year too. Well 4 when I cut out that problem branch. Whatever it is, I don’t like it, bark missing and all.
That looks to me to just be the outer shell of bark that’s missing. There’s an outer layer of bark that can be confusing. I don’t think the bark is missing down to the cambium layer. If I’m right it’s no issue at all. Your tree looks great to me.
How many flower buds are there on that tree? On mine the flower buds were all on the small wood.
Thanks for looking at it. Having lost cherries to canker I’m paranoid. The ones I lost, the first sign were oozing sap, bark just peeling off, etc. This does not look the same. OK, I’ll rethink my pruning. No sap at all anywhere.
Not many if any. Some spur like wood too, may be buds. No bud swell, the tree is completely dormant, so hard to tell. Some tip ends have some buds, but I can’t tell what they are. The ends will probably be pruned too on some branches.
Tip end with more visible buds
Spur like formation.
Drew, cherries often have peeling bark naturally. For me your tree looks in very good condition.
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Thanks OK, I guess I can take my tin foil hat off and try not to be so paranoid!
I’m still going to make it open centered, and cut a huge chunk of the central leader.
I need to keep it small. I let it go the first year. Some new thinking is not to chop at the knees the first year, just to establish roots. I decided to keep existing scaffolds and not make new ones. The trees turn out a little higher, but I feel better about it, not setting the tree back. Doing this the trees still don’t get that tall. I’ll keep them at 7 or 8 feet. I lost one tree to knee high pruning and screwed another up, so now I’m gun shy to do it anymore. Unless they are super small, then i can see doing it.
Hello, trees may benefit from what’s called “furrowing” in the area I am from (not sure about the exact English term). In May or June you make a long vertical cut or two at the sides of the trunk and below the scaffolds where they connect to the trunk. Do not cut too deep, just cut the bark. That causes loosening of the bark, the affected area is being filled with callous substance and new young bark forms eventually in couple months, while the trunk/branches grow wider because of the break in the dense bark. That is especially beneficial for cherries, as their bark quickly becomes very dense and the trunk and scaffolds have the tendency to tear the bark up as they grow, however it works great for apples and pears, as well, if you want to strengthen a particular part of the tree and avoid the bark-breaking problems. The whole idea of cutting your tree may sound counterintuitive, however, it’s a very useful technique and your trees will thank you for that
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Drew:
I think you’ll have some bloom on a tree that size. Some of those buds look like flower buds. If there are three side by side the outer two are flower.
No thanks. I won’t be doing that on my trees.
Thanks all I learned a lot this morning!
Drew51, the spur like formation from your photo is 100% a fruiting formation. Not sure about the upper photo - but the buds look very much like fruiting buds, too. How old is your tree? I don’t have experience with this particular variety, however, cherries bear fruit on 2+ year old wood along their whole length, plums - too, and sometimes plums blossom on 1 year old wood. So if you choose to cut the central leader part now you may be sacrificing a part of your fruits.
My 2 cents, if you don’t mind - open center shape is good for peaches because with them, you need to encourage permanent yearly growth of new fruiting spurs. Cherries bear fruits on all their branches therefore they allow for more flexibility regarding shapes.
With cherries, the logic is as follows: if you trim 1/3 of the vertical branch, new growth will form somewhat sharp angles, if you trim 1/2 of the branch, the growth will be forming angles close to 90’ and the canopy will still be compact, but wide and having more fruiting wood, then the open center formation. So I would just cut the 1/2 of the central leader and the same for side branches (since the tree is young and is still forming), and later the new branches can be trimmed back at 1/3 from the top.
Yes, but that’s OK, plenty of scaffolds left for fruit. I’m more concerned about establishing the tree. I have other mature trees so fruit harvest should be excellent. Next year this tree will have awesome production and be shaped right.
It was planted in June of 2015, it’s a new tree.[quote=“KindDragon, post:258, topic:197”]
My 2 cents, if you don’t mind
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Hey no problem! Well this is probably more a plum than a cherry. I myself prune my cherry trees using the KGB method. I feel that works well for me. This will be pruned like a plum using backyard orchard culture techniques. The tree will never be taller than 8 feet.
Drew, the bark damage is probably caused by frost and subsequent warm temperatures. I got that on few of my trees as well and usually protect the affected ones from sun by shading the southern side. Try to wrap the affected spots while the tree is dormant so it doesn’t get worse
OK, thanks I do have tree wrap around here somewhere…