I’m thinking about adding Cox next year. Much of what I read says its difficult to grow and best suited for a cool maritime climate. Have people had success with this apple in the Midwest? Average summer highs in my location are low 80’s although are highly variable.
I’m in the Quad Cities and grafted some Coxes Orange Pippin in March. Just today I checked the name tags because they are doing so well.
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I have Cox Orange Pippin on a wild tree here on our property (Southern Adirondacks of NY) It is on it’s 5th leaf since grafting I think. It has shown good vigor and has formed a nice tree. It gets dormant sprays of copper and oil and then captan and imidan 2-3 times through the summer. With those sprays it has been a pretty clean tree. Since it’s on a wild root stock it has not yet bloomed.
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I don’t spray trees until they are bearing, unless I see a need, like CAR or tent caterpillars.
I believe the shape of the apple probably looks like wheel of cheese.
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Are all Euro plums compatible to graft between each other; Damsons, prunes, gages, mirabelles? For example, I have two identical Damson and would like to multi-graft one with sweeter varieties.
Yes,they should be.
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yes they should be.
im not a 100% sure on Japanese. Or hybrids of asian and eu’s. But i think those on most cases work to.
edit: in the EU we graft quite a few apricots to plum rootstocks. Some variety’s don’t like this some do. But if i where to gamble, id assume most plum apricot hybrids would be decently graft compatible with most plums.
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There is a deep dive thread here somewhere where we did all the theories. I think our conclusion is having some American plum in the lineage greatly improves compatibility.
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do you know what the name or link of that topic is? i would be really interested in it. If read a few of the compatibility grafting topics on this forum. (those where what made me a member of this forum) but i can’t recall the specific conclusion your talking about. So i guess i missed a topic, or my memory is failing me XD
Its not like we did a scientific study on the matter but the discussion was around this point. Also Prunus salicina appears to be 4 distinct genetic populations making the Asian question even more complicated.
Asian / European plum grafting compatibility - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit
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I have two sweet cherry trees of unknown variety. They are roughly 100’ apart and separated by other blossoming trees, as well as elevation difference. They are 8-10 years old, and blossom profusely but hardly set fruit ( generally around 10 cherries per year, though this past year, with the bad spring, there are zero. ) I want to purchase a mature pollinator so that I can possibly have fruit next year. I do not want to wait on a bare root tree, or grafts, to establish for another 2-3 years before they will blossom. However, local garden centers generally do not have varieties that are obviously different ( such as yellowish or black cherries ) and I do not want to purchase the same variety ( they may very well both be the same varieties, though one has bark that is more silvery/gray, and the other more towards light brown ). I cannot remember how the fruit looked. I believe they were red, but not dark red or yellow red. However, they may have never been given adequate time to ripen before others picked them off. Given that these cherries hardly produce, if at all, what are the chances that they are self-pollinating varieties? If not self-pollinating, I can at least consider a few varieties local nurseries tend to carry. Are Bing cherries always dark red or do they darken as they ripen?
multiple factors could lead to your poor production.
How far away would the other nearest cherry tree be? (neighbours)
Since you did get a few cherries, it could be that pollination is not the problem.
And if pollination is the problem you should either lookup the S allele of your current varieties. Or plant a self fertile one (broken S4)
you could also consider grafting a branch of a pollinator in your mature tree’s. that might even give some flowers next spring. But definitely the spring afterwards if you graft now.
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I would plant a Van and or Rainier cherry. Van is common cross pollinator for Bing and self fertile so its not likely what you have now and Rainier is yellow red and visually different and about my favorite cherry. Your still looking at 2-3 years for size and flower quantity to get up to snuff.
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I don’t believe any of my neighbors have cherry trees, or fruit trees in general, and the properties are semi-separated by wooded areas.
I plan to graft to each of the existing trees regardless. I was really hoping to this year but could not find any scion wood from an obviously different variety. Is it worth attempting a T-bud graft from one tree to another, at this time? Will it have blossom next spring? I am likely going to purchase a bare root white gold, and govenor woods ( if I can find it instock ) but some companies wont send out trees until they are past their blooming date.
One supplier offers larger “fruiting size” trees, at a premium price. I inquired whether they are branched at all, or all pruned off, what root stock used, etc. but they could not provide me a straight answer…
I’m hoping to find a rainier locally. Though, I haven’t seen one at a garden center yet. Regardless, the local trees are $100+ each. Though, they are nicely shaped and with 1.5" calipers. I just hate to purchase a variety that I already have, by chance.
cherry grafts done now, have a chance of forming a few blossoms at the bottom of the new growing shoot next season. Especially when grafted on a mature already flowering tree.
your tree’s are not that far apart though. So i doubt grafting a scion of each to the other will yield improvements.
Best to find scionwood of a self pollinating cultivar. One with the mutated S4 allele
from this topic
might be usefull
pages 30 and 31 list a lot of the self fertile cherry’s. Most have a mutated S4. But it seems they have also found/made some with S3’ or S5’
I’m curious how those arose. If they where made by irradiating pollen or where found naturally.
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Do you know if you cherry trees are early, mid or late bloomers?
If it were me, I would pick two self fruitful varieties as they are universal pollination partners.
Lapins is early, White Gold and Sweet Heart are early to mid season. Black Gold for late season. Picking two of these self fruitful will guarantee you to have cherries and very likely cross-pollinate your existing trees.
This article may be helpful to you.
http://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/sweet-cherry-pollination/?print-view=true
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yes it was radiation-induced mutations done in the 50s, I think at least for s3’ and s4’ those mutations have been carried forward through regular breeding since then. not sure about s5’. see this paper which I found this after reading the Long, Long, Kaiser book “sweet cherries”
“Structure of the incompatibility gene” D Lewis & Leslie K Crowe, Heredity (1954)
https://www.nature.com/articles/hdy195438
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They bloom Towards the end of April, is that considered early?
Local garden center has Van Cherry available. Is it self fertile? It is listed as both self fertile, and requiring a pollinator on different sites…
I usually trust a university article like the one I posted more than info from nurseries (often copy from one another and if it was inaccurate, they keep being inaccurate). Washington State puts Van as self-incompatible.
I do not know if April is early, mid or late for you. You will have to compare yours with other cherries locally. Maybe, your local nursery that sells cherry trees could tell?
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