[NAFEX] Mazzard (cherry) r/s hardiness

Bernie Nikolai BNikolai at shaw.ca
Thu Feb 16 18:40:34 EST 2006


As long as we get snow, Mazzard and Maheleb are both hardy in Edmonton, zone 
3.  But the sweet cherries grafted onto them die, just too cold here.  But 
there is even a far hardier sweet cherry rootstock that almost nobody knows 
about, is fully compatible with sweet cherries, and is fully hardy in 
Edmonton and across the Canadian prairies, both above and below the snow.

Its the Amur Cherry, Prunus Maakii, the one with the dark berries birds love 
and the gorgeous copper coloured bark.  If you graft sweet cherry onto this 
rootstock when the Amur Cherry is just at green tip, it takes well with whip 
and tongue grafts, but doesn't seem to take at any other time.  I have seen 
several heavily laden sweet cherry trees with Van on them in Anchorage, 
Alaska, right by the ocean where the minimum winter temperatures didn't drop 
below -15F, so the top part, the sweet cherry part, survived and produced 
well.

I don't know why more folks don't use this rootstock for sweet cherries in 
cold climates.  You can grow millions of seedling rootstock very easily just 
by planting the seeds.  I suppose the answer is if you are in a cold enough 
climate where Amur Cherry needed for a rootstock, you probably will have the 
top of the sweet cherry die due to cold.  It seems to me -25F is about the 
coldest the hardiest sweet cherries can take (Van, Hedelfigen, Gold, etc.)
Bernie Nikolai
Edmonton, Alberta
(no snow, best winter EVER, but a cold front just roared through, and it 
was -26C driving into work this morning, going to about -30C tonight)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "derry and bill" <wchase at interchange.ubc.ca>
To: "nafex" <nafex at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 10:01 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] Mazzard (cherry) r/s hardiness


> Does anyone know if Mazzard r/s is hardy to zone 4?
>
> Derry
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Derry Walsh and Bill Chase
> Aldergrove, B.C., Canada, V4W 2E6
> (604) 856-9316
> http://derrysorchardandnursery.ca
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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