View Messages

Return to Vegetables & Fruits

About sour cherry....

[Post a Follow Up] [Post to this category]
From: Kresimir Bradvica
City:
Pula, ZZ
At the begining sorry for my poor english.We have a four years old tart cherry that is about to flower.In the past it would have flowered but after an amount of weeks the fruits, still smaller than e.g. peas would have turned yellow and after that simply fallen down from the tree.We supposed it was due to monilia laxa and treated against this disease but last year we saw the same behaviour of the cherry.We sprinkled with element Boron but no avail.So what is an expert oppinion? We live in Croatia.Thank You!

 
Extension Message
From: James Schmidt
Extension Specialist, Home Horticulture/4-H
Department of Crop Sciences
schmidt1@illinois.edu
Not sure exactly what's going on with the tree. Cherries do get a condition that causes a large percentage of fruit drop before it matures. Ruling out some type of disease, or that the tree simply isn't ready to hold a crop of fruit, here are some suggestions. If you have not, prune the tree to open up the canopy. Cherries are usually trained to a system called the central leader system. It consists of a main trunk, and then 5 to 12 scaffold limbs coming off the trunk. Pruning allows maximum sunlight to the leaves for better photosynthesis. Another thing that helps with drop is to thin the fruits. While cherries are not typically thinned, leaving only 10 cherries on any given spur may help with crowding issues.

 
[Post a Follow Up] [Post to this category]
 
Return to Hort Corner.
Search current board