North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

Hi Steve,

I'm in heavy clay and not well-drained. I've tried numerous sweet cherries on the old standards Mazzard and Mahaleb rootstocks with no success. I've also tried MXM-60 which was selected for its tolerance of heavy clay.  The MXM series are hybrids of Mazzard and Mahaleb. Don't hear too much of them any more but I have a very large Galaxy Sweet Cherry on MXM-60 and produces good crops for me.  I have a Montmorency sour cherry on MXM-60, the MXM-60 is doing well but the sour cherry wood is infected with fungus and dying. 

You said you wanted to stay away from Krymsk.  Because of my problem with Clay I wanted to try Krymsk 5 and Krymsk 6 and got about half a dozen each. They are doing well in my heavy clay. Krymsk 6 is advertised to reduce growth 25 to 30% and Krymsk 5 to reduce growth 50 to 60%. Thus far bacterial canker has not been a problem with any of my Krymsk trees. I understand commercial orchards are being planting on these two rootstocks in the Northwest. 

Jerry