North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["loneroc" <loneroc@mwt.net>]

Just an additional comment on Evans.  It is the only cherry I still grow.  I
long ago pulled out North Star and Meteor as worthless here--leaf diseases
and only a handful of cherries in a season.

Steve H. WI
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kieran or donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>
To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 8:13 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] correction on cherry bloom time


> Sorry, a typo, the Duke blooms LATER than the sweets.  Hence the notion of
> seeing if sour cherries will pollinate it better.
>     Actually, now that I think of it, it seems a little odd to me that the
> Steve's Evans came through such a late freeze.   Around here people only
> seem to have amarelle cherries, either Montmorency or more ofter a sprout
> from Granny's tree.  The only tree I was absolutely sure was Montmorency
was
> one one a nursery property, I was really impressed by the larger fruit,
but
> then the tree died.  Granny's tree won't sicken and die, even if you do
have
> to pit twice as many for the same amount of fruit.  The only morello I
have
> have seen was a nice young tree, bound to be a North Star, probably about
8
> years old.  The year after I checked out the fruit on it, we had a bad
late
> freeze, and that tree froze so badly, I don't know if it even survived.
It
> certainly had to have been set back for the year by it anyway.  I have
never
> seen the amarelles hurt by freezes, and they tend to crop most years.
These
> observations all come from my 3 years of living in the old part of town
and
> getting around by bike a lot.  Since then, so many of the trees I used to
> keep watch on have died from SBD, Sudden Bulldozer Disease.
>     One of the sweet cherries I have are a sweet black cherry that has
long
> been grown here and is typically propagated by sprouts.  I sorta wonder if
> it too has some sour cherry in it.  Do sweet cherries on their own roots
> typically send up root sprouts like plums do?  Not nearly as much as
plums,
> but enough to give trees away.  The others are seedlings from a sweet
cherry
> that cropped one year in town and died the next year from sudden chainsaw
> disease.  I don't actually have any of the yellow cherry seedlings that I
> brought to a NAFEX meeting years ago and gave away.  I took in this pot
> jammed full of seedlings and left it with a note on it saying they were
> freebies.  when I came back, there was only a bit of dirt left in the pot.
> (This kind of thing is so much fun!)  I need to hit that yard and at least
> pick up some pits, since the season is past.  The history on the sweet
> yellow cherry is that the family's mother bought some cherries from a guy
a
> few miles from here, and liked them so well she planted seeds.  When I
> picked from them, they told me that the 4 trees had not failed to crop in
35
> years.  (Incidentally, these trees are on a slope.  I found a huge cherry
> tree on flat ground once, but it was dead.  Not that I think the flat
ground
> was what killed it!)  Of course, the fruit is quite small, typical for
what
> I have seen of sweet cherries in TN.
>     My first criteria for fruit trees in TN is that they not be dead.
Only
> after that do I ask about fruit size or quality.  In the case of sweet
> cherries, I talked to a retired TTU prof who was very surprised that I was
> finding live sweet cherries here.  He said than many years ago many people
> not only had sweet cherries, but they also grew in the fencerows.  then
some
> disease came in and they all died.  Anyone know what that disease was?
> Could it have something to do with the drought in the 30's, which killed
all
> the Blackheart cherries?  NAFEX's eastern sweet cherry expert, (is he
still
> living?) told me that it didn't rain normally in the eastern US for 12
> years, and that afterward people were looking for the Blackheart, but no
one
> could find one alive.  As you probably know, the true Blackheart was
> supposedly discovered a few years ago and is now commercially available.
> (I'd guess it turned up in some hollow in the Smokies where they'd pick up
> better rainfall and maybe have a bit less evaporation.  Does anyone know
> where the surviving tree was located?)  He told me that the way you could
> tell is that if you chewed up some of the cherries and spit, it looked as
> dark as tobacco juice.    Donna
>
>
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