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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] cherries

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  • From: "Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] cherries
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:48:06 -0500

Earnest, The leaves on the own root Evans that Lucky sent me are smallish and feel thicker than other cherry leaves. They have a shiny surface that almost reminds me of smooth flexible plastic. My fingers sort of stick when I slide them along the leaf surface. By contrast, mazzard has a much larger longer leaf, thin, dry and leaf-like in feel. Also sweet cherries typically have 9-11 pairs of veins per leaf, sour cherries 7-9. All of this is a moot point if your trees were on the typical Maheleb rootstock. Seems like sour cherries are supposed to do ok on it but sweet cherries are definitely shorter lived. I spent years trying to ID various trees in town, so I have this stuff memorized.
Definitely earth up your trees if you want to put the Evans on it's own roots. Might not want to do it all at once. Also you might want to do something sneaky like find a peice of root and graft directly onto the root and plant that with the graft underground. Or if you can get some pits, grow them and graft or summer bud onto the seedlings. Surely someone could spare him your Evans pits? The two trees I got from Lucky have done no better here in the heat than they have for him. but at least I have had the chance to see how very different a Morello cherry leaf is from an amarelle. Still haven't encountered a maheleb that I know of. The nursery practice of putting sweet cherries onto maheleb is the reason sweet cherries are said to be picky about soil and are short lived. Mine on their own roots have done very well on heavy clay, but alas they get frosted where they are. They are clones of a tree that crops annually in a better spot some 15 miles away. Hope this info helps. You deserve to be able to grow SOME kind of fruit up there. Donna




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