Nice grafts, Mamuang. I am glad they are growing for you.
Here are my grafts. The next two pictures will be for the ones grafted at the third week of March. They are big and are awkward to capture on camera. White gold and Stella, I think.
Here are the ones grafted on the first week of April. Kristin and Utah giant.
Here is the White gold grafted on Nadia on the 3rd or 4th week of March. It does not grow that vigorously comparing with the ones grafted on cherry tree.
I may have to try the early grafting method again though I have tried a few times before. The grafts using Antmaryâs method look wonderful! You guys are doing a great job! I think the sweet cherries will grow here now that I know all the tricks about growing them on mounds, spraying dormant copper, summer pruning, etc. There is a lot to know about growing sweet cherries the right way in my area. I will let you guys know how it turns out once the grafts are further a long. Does the graft weep for awhile or will that heal up the first year? Mine are not weeping yet but my plums and other stone fruits always weep around the graft union until they heal in the summer. Iâm going to paint these with pruning seal this year I think.
Maria and Annie,
Your grafts grow like gangbusters. Great job.
thanksăbeginnerâ luck perhapsđ
I guess I once had a wild sweet cherry I ordered from Sandusky nursery that did pretty good that was destroyed by fire with a dozen or so other good trees. They didnât burn the fire just passed by in the grass and killed them. It didnât count as a sweet cherry like the ones such as stella, lapins and others offerred today with the great big cherries. Many are now more resistant to canker and other problems according to what I have read. So I suppose I should not say I havenât had great luck with sweet cherries but I never did raise the kind of cherries I buy from The store. The neighbor that caught the field on fire is no longer allowed to burn papers in her barrel as the wind was 40 mph that day. We will see how well these grow before I start thinking about anything more. Last time I tried dormant scions and early grafting was 2014 and I ordered stella or Lapins from Bob Purvis but I donât remember which. The scions were nice but the weather was uncooperative that year. I know a couple of people here that raise the penny sized sweet cherries but like I said those are not the meaty big sweet cherries Iâm talking about wanting to grow.
In case anyone wants to know how my sweet cherry grafts are doing here are a couple of pictures. I have a lot to learn about grafting sweet cherries! My take rate as you can see was not very good which I attribute to the rootstocks, roller coaster weather, and some flaws in my sweet cherry grafting method. These grafts were for practice so I will continue to practice at it until I get it down. I will need to find a sweet cherry I can grow well here before I consider trying to grow a row of them. Sweet cherries are not something you can buy and expect to live without you have a lot of experience in Kansas. They are difficult to grow long term in the locations that grow them all the time due to canker, leaf diseases, pests etc⌠I will be a hobbyist when it comes to sweet cherries for a while yet. The Kansas soil will drown them unless you build mounds like this one is growing on I built many years ago. I donât know anyone that grows the big stella / Lapins type cherries in Kansas like what I want to but I know many who have tried. I have friends and see others in the area that grow the tiny ones or grow them and they donât fruit etc.
Clark, congratulations on sweet cherries, it looks like they started to grow. Our agricultural extension recommends to grow only sour cherries, but not sweet ones. My single Vandalay sweet cherry tree grows like crazy. Tons of new growth. Last year I had OFM all season long and the multiple strikes did not let the tree to grow much. This year we have no OFM⌠Where did it go? It is a mystery. All my grafts have huge growth by now. I removed the holding tape and secured them with skewers. They went through severe thunderstorms and are holding well. One graft will probably fail because of the damaged graft union. I have only a handful of cherries from both sweet and sour cherry trees, so they are not really productive so far. The whole idea of grafting cherries was to improve pollination and production. Next year weâll see if it works.
Antmary,
Vandalay seems like a really good one http://www.raintreenursery.com/Vandalay-Cherry-Gisela-5-SPRING.html. Iâm reading up on descriptions since we have canker and other problems here and to account for pollination http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/fphg/stone/variety-selection/cherry-varieties/self-fertile. Been getting some description information here as well http://www.starkbros.com/products/fruit-trees/cherry-trees.
Clark, I have a Vandalay for 6 years now in the Northeast, next to Black Gold. Both from Raintree an Gisela 5 . Not sure what it tastes like. Crack like crazy and rot before I got to them.
After 3 consecutive years of subzero temp, Vandalay did not flower as much or set as many fruit as Black Gold, like not even close. If I were to do it again, I would plant BG and WG and maybe other pearl series.
Mamuang,
I really appreciate that. Your advice is always very valuable to me. Growing conditions from area to area can really make a difference on how things grow. Thank you
Vandalay this year. Need to look around for fruit. Black aphids love it . I put a few bands of Tanglefoot, still a lot of leave damage.
Black Gold loaded every year. Lots of cherries under those leaves.
Antmary may not have many issue as NE seems to be drier. Vandalay grows ilke it is not on dwarf rootstocks.
Black Gold on left, Vandalay on right. I squeezed a Black Star in the middle, a very bad idea. Donât do it if you want to keep your cherry trees open, vase shape.
Mamuang, I had no disease problems with cherries so far, except for OFM last year and black spot, which can easily prevented by spraying and monilliosis outbreak this spring. Hmm⌠I guess I have some problems, if I think about them. I am not sure about Vandalay, since it did not set good this year. I blame that it flowered it very cold and rainy period and the flowers looked distorted like they might be damaged by the freeze which happened before the flowering. But your Black Gold look like a real winner, for sure.
Clark, Vandalay description did sound very good, this is why I ordered it. Weâll see if live up to expectations. I can sent scions of Vandalay next winter.
Antmary,
Vandalay seems to be more cold sensitive than BG in my experience.
Clark, if you want to try any cherries I grow, let me know⌠Only sour cherry I have is Danube, not good producer. This year it was covered with blooms, does not set as many.
Marie,.
I got a couple multi-grafted sweet cherries and they are doing fine: I bark grafted all of them on the Colt rootstocks from One Green World Nursery , Bing, Rainier, van, White Gold, Vandalay, Black Gold, and Sandra Rose. I loss my Selah graft last year to a deer that pulled it off from the graft union. That was a big loss. I did have lots of fruits this year until the hail storm knocked 95% of them off. Oh well, always next year.
Tony
@Antmary,
Let me see how my rootstocks look at the end of the year. They were badly damaged by cicada last year and Iâm trying to clean them up. Thank you!
@Mamuang,
I appreciate that Iâm experimenting some this year and trying to perfect my method. Thank you!
@tonyOmahaz5
Do you have trouble with winter die back or do they seem ok for our zone 5b - 6? Wondering if I may need to protect them some years. Our winters are sometimes more zone 5 even though they reclassified my area as zone 6.
Clark,
I donât winter protect my sweet cherries and they are doing fine. I do protect my Asian persimmons and some Hybrids like Nikitaâs Gift with wrapping and a light bulb for -3F or below. I will Winter protect one Pakistan mulberry and one Che for insurance and test out the rest with my Zone 5 climate. Have my fingers crossed.
Tony
