Unreleased University of Saskatchewan prarie cherries we want & what we know about them contrasted with romance series cherries

I do understand and I am terrible at letting things have one more year especially when they are vigorous growers etc. The bush cherries don’t really make it worthwhile to graft over for very long. I have a Tslor Tsiran Apricot that i planted originally as a shade / neighbor eraser tree and it flowers every year the bees hit it but i wont even get a chance to tell if it has pollination partners since apricots are like a once every 7 years thing and now i would rather have it as a summer flowering tree but i will probably axe 3/4 of it down and add some asian plums that i can get every three years since i will be super dissapointed if in my apricot year it does not set fruit.

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I can but this sounds like a NO producer. Why not cut it back and bark graft something else on it. Next Winter I’ll have CJ, Juliet, and Wowza scion.

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Most reason is I do not need one more cherry tree. I wanted three, so I planted CJ and CP in addition to my North Star. After 5 years I started to look for another cherry because CP was fruitless and I decided to go with a Juliet . I attempted to graft CP with scion from Tippy, actually three different grafts - none took. So I ordered a new tree that came same spring. @clarkinks suggested fertilization for CP, and I gave CP one more year. I’ve built a new terrace (Last possible spot in my hill where I was planning to plant a new currant) and planted Juliet there. So now I have 2 trees that give good crops(NS & CJ), one that opened 2 flowers at second leaf(J) and one that grew 8.5’ high and didn’t give a single flower at 6th leaf(CP) and one future currant I have no place for. And I need only three cherry. :grinning: Also, CJ is producing heavily now and almost stopped growing up(which works for me very well!)). CP grows like crazy. It cover sun for CJ, it creates wet conditions on one side of CJ and it is very prone to leaf spot. In order to replant(or uproot) it I have to wait till late fall, so I do not disturb CJ roots. But I need at least cut the branches to very low. If it survives the cut I may attempt to replant it to my neighbor yard, but I feel it is pointless - there is no full sun there, so I doubt it will do anything there and my back will be better if I just cut the roots one by one instead of carefully digging out whole bush.

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Maybe its not in a good place for this but my favorite way of removing well rooted bushes especially junipers is a tow chain hooked to your truck and 1st gear and you just drive. Its easy on the back. If your leaving it until the fall though you might as well try girdling or forcing branches down and cutting the tops and try to force flower it.

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Yep, we used to do it too. But not in that location. No car access.

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That’s what I was wondering too. I cut some of my growth off. I was also wonder about fish oil fertilizer for bloom.

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I cut more growth of the top of mine today. I bought a bag of bone meal and a bottle of Alaskan fish oil fertilizer. The fish stuff was a thick copper paste that smelt like poo! I had a hard time getting it stirred into the water. I’ll tie down some branches horizontal and see how this works. I will also add manure. I will keep on trying this for a few years. I would think pruning back should do the trick by itself.

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I think in general fish and high nitrogen is very beneficial for bloom when applied with phosphorous and some fish meals are full fish bones and all dissolved with phosphoric acid and work excellent like a 3-3-1. I was more thinking fish bone meal which stinks equally as bad and is more like a 3-16-0, in a situation like this with a plant that doesn’t want to flower I like tying plants down for flowering over reducing nitrogen but CP obviously has some issues with coming into bearing and cutting nitrogen can also help some plants flower (if amended with phosphorous and micronutrients). You may also try foliar spraying it with phosphorous from a high P fish emulsion or a non organic phosphite spray. On the plus side the worms and beneficial bacteria and mycorrhizae love all the fish fertilizer and i think its great for soil improvement and plant growth.

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I have a yorkie named Bentley. Everytime I let Bentley out and I can’t find him, he is buy my CP bush. Last time he made it into the caged area! He loves eating that stinky fertilizer. Tells me how well I have my bush protected. It’s wrapped with 6x6 rebar that has the cheap bird netting around that. It keeps the deer out anyway. I will add more manure over the top after mixing it into the mulch I put it on. I am surprised the coons have not dug it up and mixed it in if my dog gets in there. At least Bentley didn’t get sick from it yet. He’s 12 years old and doesn’t like to go far from the porch. He usually lays there and pees by the sidewalk or front yard. I left him there on the porch while I went to my sweet cherry trees which are a hundred yards away from CP in a deer fenced in area that I completely take a different path to. They are blooming with my plums, and I’m looking for pollinators. Normally he is still on the porch when I get back, and the CP is in back of the house a hundred yards away, so he smelt it from the front porch!

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I have ammended with fish before and had my dogs and cats dig up entire trees to get at the rotten filth! Yorkies are like tiny pit bulls and have alot of personality fit into a lighter frame! Carboard and rock helped like a grave site, Sometimes my cat pulls out my annual flowers on purpose and i have to line those with little rocks as well

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Your going to cut your Wowza next year already for scions? You might not have a bush left. I would wait till it was at least three foot high. I would have a hard time trimming a bush that’s one year old.

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You have a point there, it is too small! It’s growing, yet still small.

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don’t talk him out of it man! Haha. call it pruning maybe… :wink: Im gonna have some seedling cj’s I’d like to try grafting.

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I’m going to try that too. That seems to be a fast way to propagate these. I bet Gurneys will lower the price from $100 next winter.

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There’s no nurseries in the US licensed so far for Valentine or Cupid. I’ve looked, trust me there. I have all the ones available and Juliette is the best producer, CJ tastes better to me, Romeo is ‘okay’ and CP is worthless because it hardly ever produces. All of my others pump out cherries.

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I have a friend that lives in Canada. On facebook she stated that Valentine was her best producer for that year. Yet looking on a Canadian nursery website they discontinued Valentine for lack of interest. I have spoke to local Ca. nurseries looking for Cupid and Valentine and they have dropped selling Valentine also. Valentine might be hard to get now.
https://treetime.ca/productsList.php?pcid=256&tagid=37

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Im glad i bought wowza on sale but it was still expensive.

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yeah I paid $39 for mine. It’s growing great too! I’ll post a picture of it in the Wowza thread.

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chatting with reputable source, sounds like there have been deer problems that have set u off s cherry program back a ways, libs in Canada don’t believe in removing deer that are problematic i guess, unfortunate

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My CP bush is struggling so hard while all the other ones are thriving. I’m about ready to pull it out. It’s probably going to die on its own as it is (winter kill, didn’t come back this summer). A few months ago Costco was selling CP and Valentine. I picked up a Valentine. It looks like
it was imported directly from Canada. I went back a few days later to get another and they were all sold out.

Once the border opens back up, how hard do you think it would be to bring a Cupid back with you from Canada? I’ve taken plants across before. As long as you declare it, you could roll the dice and might actually get it through.

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