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  • From: Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>
  • To: michael@herbsandapples.com, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Can cherries thrive in the North?
  • Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:40:06 -0400

As I continue to think about, and recall my cherry troubles (it has been several years now), I am remembering a little more.
In my first post on this subject, I mentioned that only the leaf buds at the tip of last year's growth survived. Actually, I believe the problem was that ALL the buds along the entire length of the previous summer's growth were clusters of flower buds. At least 99% of those flower buds died over the winter. I ended up with long thin branch growth with branching and leaves only where a year's growth stopped.
We get down to -35F about half of our winters. Twice we went to -40, but that was a while ago, certainly before the Evans cherry was planted.

Steve in the Adirondacks


Michael Phillips wrote:
The Evans cherry thread made an interesting turn with Steve and Claude's
comments.

Here in northern New Hampshire (a windy and cool Zone 4b today) my tart
cherry trees have done relatively well. I planted two Northstar in 2001
followed by an Evans in 2003, all from FEDCO. Cherries start fruiting here
in the third or fourth year. One of the Northstar exhibited "gummosis" on
the trunk for whatever reason about then and went into gradual decline. The
other two cherries last year gave a solid half bushel of fruit apiece. Both
of these trees are on the order of 8 feet tall, with 3 to 4 inch diameter
trunks, no evidence of suckering, no black knot, no gummosis, and yes,
leafing out all along the branch. All in all, quite healthy. Our soil is a
nice loam, neither sandy nor heavy on the clay. Azomite clay is probably the
one notable soil amendment used. I added another Evans in 2007 and a Galaxy
in 2008, both coming along well.

The thing is there're lots of black cherry, pin cherry, and choke cherry
around here... and definitely within a couple hundred feet of my orchard
cherries. We did go down to 30 below this winter which is ten degrees colder
than these trees have seen in their short time here. Still, I'm pretty
optimistic for a repeat harvest... which includes paying the usual "fair
trade tax" to the cedar waxwings before they discover the ripening
Juneberries.
Local reality differs for each of us. And you never know until you try!

Michael Phillips
Heartsong Farm Healing Herbs
859 Lost Nation Road
Groveton, NH 03582
603-636-2286
www.HerbsAndApples.com

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:47:04 -0400
From: Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Evans or Bali cherry
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.20090413124704.0109a6a0@pop.ulaval.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I could have written almost the same story about my cherry experiences...
Near Quebec, zone 4, started with a Montmorency, then Northstar and Meteor.
After those 3 did about the same as Steve's Evans, I tried Evans as a last
try. Didn't do any better.
I always thought this was rather strange because apples, pears and plums
are all very happy here, and there are some Montmorency also happy not very
far from my orchard in areas at least as cold. Would it be the soil? It is rather sandy, and not very rich. I rather think is it because there are many wild cherries around
(P.virginiana - Choke Cherry and P.pensylvanica - Pin Cherry) that host
some sickness that the varieties can't cope with.
Claude,
Quebec



I live about 40 to 50 miles south of St Lawrence Nurseries. I was up there one spring and he was telling me about the new cherry he was offering. I talked him (Bill) in to selling one to me even though he wasn't going to list them in the catalog for another year.
We went out to the field and he dug one for me and cradled it in his hands as we walked back to the barn where he wrapped it up for the trip home.
I planted it in soil that will grow plums like crazy. It never did well. It grew quickly into a small tree but most of the flower buds were killed over winter. It always had just scattered flowers and never produced more than a hand full of cherries in any one year. In fact, most of the leaf buds died each year too, leaving the terminal buds alive. Lots of bare twigs with a tuft of new growth on the ends.
After several years, when the trunk diameter was about 4 inches, the leaves appeared to go into their fall colors in August, then the leaves fell off. That was the end of it.

Steve in the Adirondacks (zone 3 or 4)


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