North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

> Although,... I think my Northstar cherry tree has died. It's three years 
> old and I've never had any previous trouble with it. Due to the freeze 
> last year, this is the first year I've had cherries, though not too 
> many. It had lots of blossoms, but I had a real shortage of bees earlier 
> this spring.
>
> But after we had an extra 5 inches of rain in June (that's a lot for 
> Nebraska, though we didn't have flooding or anything), the leaves on the 
> Northstar steadily turned yellow and dropped off. There's not a leaf on 
> it now. It's in a flat area, not a depression or anything, and none of 
> my other fruit trees had any problem (most have needed extra water since 
> then, but there's been no irrigation anywhere near the cherry).
>
> But there are no signs of borers or any other problem, so I imagine it 
> must have been the rainy June. I'm pretty new at all this, though.
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
>   

For what it's worth (not much), that's how my Northstar cherry died too. 
I doubt that your 5 inches of rain caused the trouble unless the site is 
really poorly drained. My tree got up to about 4 inches in diameter near 
the ground. It looked perfectly normal and then the leaves turned a nice 
yellow and fell off. It looked just about like the normal fall drop of 
leaves except that it happened in August. I left the tree there but it 
was 100% dead the next season. I don't recall any unusual amount of rain 
at any time that summer.

Steve in the Adirondacks