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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] nafex Bali vs Evans

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  • From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] nafex Bali vs Evans
  • Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 09:03:55 -0500

Lucky wrote:
Would it be compatible with sweet cherry, avium, as a rootstock? Everything I've seen written about it indicates that it does not survive/perform as a grafted specimen, regardless of the rootstock(though I suppose on its own seedlings, it might.

I hadn't heard about this. Now I'm getting curious about it's background. It has weird succulent feeling leaves totally unlike my sweet cherries or any plums I have, including cerasifera. (Aren't myrobalans cerasifera?) The local sour cherries I have have fairly similar feeling leaves. I bought a Montmorency that's not doing so well, it has leaves that feel the same but the bark on it is so slick and shiny I wonder if it could be an ornamental cherry instead. Looks nothing like the bark on my sour cherries. The Evans are still too small to tell much about bark. (after some 4 years or so they've been in the ground, don't think they like the soil too well here) All of my sour cherries have grown slowly, some close to the garden so I really think they have no excuse except some lack in the clay soil. The own root sweet cherries have grown quite well, are bigger than anything else I have planted except for the chinese chestnuts.
The thing about cherry rootstocks is that they ususally use maleheb, another species altogether. Supposedly fine for sour cherry but not too good for sweet cherry even in the best of soils. The notion is that the maleheb will offer some dwarfing for the sweets. The trouble with sweet cherries is they want to grow straight up, and a dwarfing stock won't stop that tendency. Sour cherries though make a nice shaped smallish tree, there is really no reason why they need to be on a rootstock for dwarfing purposes. As for suckering tendencies, mow them. Donna







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