I chopped my Colt rootstock to ground level and covered it with saw dust and some dirt on top of it. Now I saw four shoots came up. I will graft these guys next year with more sweet cherries.
Tony
Did you experience any issues with Colt reducing the fruit production in comparison to other rootstocks? I read that this may be a problem with Colt and that only very productive cultivars should be grafted on it.
I have a compact stella on colt that grows great and has looked reasonably healthy, but flowers sparsely and fruits even less.
Stan,
I got 2 multi Bark grafted sweet cherries with 6 varieties on them. I pruned them to 8 feet tall. I just Bark grafted another sweet cherry variety on them. The two trees are 4 years old. Last year their flowers were frozen by late frost. This year may be a good year for me with all the flower buds. BTW, here is my Pawpaw stooling bed with about 40 rootstocks about two to three feet tall.
Tony
I have a 4 in 1 sweet cherry on Colt. It has fruited in its 3rd year.
I’ve read that Colt is not cold hardy. Anyone using Colt in the North? I wonder how much cold they can stand. I’m curious because when I bought my five colt root stocks it didn’t say that they were not cold hardy.
Johnny, I got two multi-grafted sweet cherries on Colt in-ground for 4 yrs now. The lowest temp so far was -16F without any problems. I also grafted a Carmine Jewel on a Colt 4 yrs ago and it doing fine. I got five new growths from stooling a Colt rootstock. Hopefully, I can graft more sweet cherries on them next Spring.
Tony
By using colt on CJ does it make the bush grow bigger? I was thinking of trying the opposite and using romance roots to try to dwarf. The romance cherries grow on their own roots.
My CJ on Colt rootstock is about 10 feet tall. The CJ on its own root is about 9 feet tall after 5 yrs in-ground and it does suckers. I got 3 suckers potted this Spring and I plan to put them in-ground this fall.
Tony
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