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Sat, Apr 21, 12 at 19:24
| Hi all , I have 3 old pie cherry trees that don't produce much in the way of edible cherries . Every June we get hundreds of tiny tart cherries and the birds won't even eat them off the trees . We inherited them when we bought our place . The wife says if they don't produce a decent tasting cherry again this year she want's them gone. I really do not want to cut them down next winter.
What I would like to do is Graft something onto the trees . plum maybe ,I know they are both Prunus . but are they compatible? Any advise on what cultivars will take to being grafted on cherry stock ? Thanks
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Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by konrad___far_north 3..just outside of E (My Page) on Sat, Apr 21, 12 at 20:35
| No plum,.. I would cut them down really good now, branches like a foot or so down to the main trunk this year. Let them grow new wood [water sprouts] and graft next spring onto these about 10 inches out. Any good pie and sweet cherries, you could get a instant 10 variety going next year. |
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| I would suggest same as konrad -- cut branches way way back to about a foot from the trunk, allow new sprouts to come out of the "stumps" this season, then next spring try grafting some good tasting varieties to the sprouts. The tree will look goofy for a few years, but after 6 or 7 years it will look almost normal again and you'll have a great crop of great tasting cherries of whatever varieties you like. There are a lot of good online resources about how to do this. Look up stephenhayesuk on YouTube as I know he's got more than one video about "grafting over" an old tree (in his case it's with apples but the concept for cherries is the same). |
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| Agreed. Your trees are well established, use them for grafting hosts. Has to be other types of cherry, but you could go hog wild and graft as many types of cherry branch to them as you can get your hands on. Have a veritable cherry fruit salad tree. |
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| Pie cherry trees are good for whip and tongue grafting as well as budding in the summer. If you don't like Montmorency, you could graft on sweet cherry. I have read warnings about this, but I dont know if I believe them. IT is a different species. John S PDX OR |
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