----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 2:22
PM
Subject: [NAFEX] re Cherries
Reading the information on cherries posted so far
-
I did not realize when I bought my cherry
trees how different rootstocks could have such diverse reactions to soil
conditions (or to anything else!) All I knew about rootstocks were
that they were used to create dwarf or semidwarf trees.
We have such heavy clay soil that this year with the drought it was
like concrete. We are in zone 5b, Rochester, NY.
We have Ranier (gold & sweet)
on Gisela doing great.
We also have Van (gold & sweet) on
Mazzard doing great. Both trees produced a lot of cherries this
year (we missed some due to birds) with only one spraying of
Serenade (b. subtilis). I planted them in April
2000 ; they were 4 ft, 1/2" caliper ; 10 + ft trees now. The
Van has a 16 in circumference, the Raniers about 12 in average.
Last year when we had more rain we had
a bumper crop. We put up 6 gallons! of cherries in addition to the 2+ gal
or so that my husband eats while he picks and the 2 gal or more we gave to
family and friends.
Our Emperor Francis (red, sweet) on
Mazzard is dying- it never did take in our yard (4 yrs old and
only produced a handfull of cherries this year) and now I suspect it
was the clay soil it did not like.
We also have a wild cherry (red, tart) nearby
that the birds clean all the fruit off. We didn't plant it as a decoy but
it works that way.
We have the cherry trees listed above, plus
apples (Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Melrose, Fortune and 20 oz), pears
(Bosc and Anjou), peaches (coralstar and starfire), plums (Simka and
Van) and apricots (Moongold and Sungold). Of all of these the cherries
and peaches are the easiest by far for us to grow. Just
plant, pick and eat. They got sprayed once this year only because
the apples and pears were getting sprayed at the time for fire blight and
I didn't want to throw out the leftover serenade.
The pears and the Granny Smith apple
have been the most trouble- fire blight sensitive. I didn't know about fire
blight either when I bought the trees. Our neighbor has a decorative
plum with plum curculio beetles and now our plums need to be sprayed. We are
also committed to staying organic and will be trying the Neem mentioned before
on the list for the beetles.
Thanks,
Dianne Stephany
Rochester NY (53 and finally the sun is shining
after 5 days of rain, rain and rain).
_______________________________________________
nafex mailing list
nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
**YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
All
other messages are discarded.
No exceptions.
----
To subscribe
or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be used to change
other email
options):
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
File
attachments are NOT stripped by this list
TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF
FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
Please do not send binary files.
Use plain text
ONLY in emails!
Message archives are
here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
NAFEX web
site: http://www.nafex.org/
