North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

Hm. Good to know. I planted two sweet cherries on mahaleb in my heavy clay soil last year. Since mahaleb seemed to be a very popular rootstock, I didn't think much about it.

Should I hill up the soil a little to bury the graft, to give the scion a chance to put down some of its own roots? One tree was grafted very low, so this would be easy, but the other one has the graft higher, so it would require a bit of landscaping to smooth out the soil.

For what it's worth, the trees seemed to do great last year, and bloomed this year, which is earlier than I was expecting. Then again, maybe early blooming is part of a "live fast, die young" lifestyle.

Melissa

--- On Fri, 5/7/10, Kieran and/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net> wrote:

From: Kieran and/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] short life in sweet cherries
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Friday, May 7, 2010, 10:35 AM

 I have 2 books on plant propagation, an old one and a modern one, don't remember if it's the modern one or both of them that talk about mahaleb rootstock and short life in sweet cherries.  I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm going to find a bunch of other people talking about this, because your climate and soil type matter.  Anyway, I have some sweet cherries that came from other sweet cherries, on their own roots, and they aren't dead yet after 15 years (thriving actually).  That is a big deal for Tennessee, and they came from big trees that weren't dead yet.  The Duke came from a huge tree that 2 people couldn't reach their arms around together.  It was cut and bulldozed to make a car lot. 

    My sour cherries are also on their own roots, and they aren't dead yet either.  They came from a woman who'd had her sour cherries for decades, and probably got them from someone else who'd had them for decades before that.  I have been filled with envy when I have looked at the size of the fruit on two "bought" trees, but both those trees died within a year or two of my noticing them(ie, they were just getting started in their productive life).  One was a Montmorency on pretty good soil about 2002, the other was probably North Star on heavy red clay in the early 90's.  Did they die due to their Mahaleb rootstock?  I suspect so.    Donna

 

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/wasco/horticulture/Rootstocks/documents/GFGChoosingtheRightCherryRootstock.pdf

 

 

http://www.goodfruit.com/Good-Fruit-Grower/May-15th-2009/Sweet-cherry-rootstock-traits/

 

 

 Mahaleb is about 75-90% of Mazzard size and is often called "semi-dwarf", simply because it is smaller than Mazzard.  Mahaleb should only be used in well drained soils. 

 

http://www.thenewfruitgrower.com/training_systems.htm

 

http://classes.hortla.wsu.edu/hort310/hort%20310%20-%20documents/Rootstocks.pdf

 

http://www.cameronnursery.com/products/rootstocks.htm

 

http://westernfarmpress.com/mag/farming_suggestions_help_cherry/

 

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg061214094583.html