Weather has a *lot* to do with it.

I hope that's all it is Jean001. It has been rather unusual weather. Cold, rainy, soil temps below 50 at night, then all of a sudden 90 and humid. I just thought the fungicides would do the trick. I'm still holding out hope that I'll harvest quite a lot of cherries. The tree has another bumper crop and I guess if I lost 1/2 of them I'd still get wore out pitting and freezing the other 1/2.

Thanks for the reply jean001.

The best way to get cherries in climates not well suited for them is to use Orbit. Immunox is not affective against brown rot except in the blossum blight stage. Orbit won't wash off in the rain and even split fruit will ripen before rotting. Bumper is the generic version of the same chemical.

Don't ever try to protect fruit trees with an all purpose pre-mix- they never work well.

Thanks harvestman; I'll try to get my hands on some Orbit or Bumper.

After reading your post I was comparing the lables on-line and it looks like Orbit uses the same thing that's used in the Infuse that I have..., but a lot more of it - like 41.8% -vs- 1.55% of something called Propiconazole.

I may have to see if any garden centers have it, or can get it quicker than I could mail order it in.

Thanks again!!!

I like your focus. I think you will succeed and I hope you're ready to net those cherries next year to keep the birds from getting your hard earned harvest.

Cherries sure aren't my most productive fruit here in southeastern NY. This year we're having a perfect season for them besides one cool night about 10 days after they dropped their petals when temps dropped to around 30. A decent crop became light and probably not worth netting. 2nd skunk year in a row. Too bad, the few cherries they will yield may be exceptional if dry clear weather holds.

Iowajer:

You do not need Orbit or Bumper or much of anything else to successfully grow tart cherries in Iowa. I am from Iowa so know the climate, and believe me Virginia is worse for just about every insect and disease. Yet I have grown tart cherries for 35 years with no problems -- except for the following:

The normal lifespan of a tart cherry tree like Northstar or Meteor is about 20 years, give or take 5 years, but it is not age alone that kills them. It is the bacterial disease that develops with age that does it. I have had 2 Northstars, 2 Meteors, and 1 large Montmorency, all planted in 1979. The Northstars were finished before 20 years, one Meteor lasted 22 years, the Montmorency about the same, and the last Meteor was removed more recently at the ripe age of around 25 years. All of them were victims of bacterial disease and nothing else.

All of the symptoms you describe can be attributed to one or another of the signs of bacterial disease. In advanced stages, the disease, which develops cankers on the limbs, eventually kills those limbs which should be cut off promptly. In the meantime, cherries become smaller, and often rot on the tree, though the trees will continue to produce. Leaves begin to look punky. At 15 years of age, and showing the symptoms you describe, your tree may have about 5 years of useful life left.

None of the cocktail of chemicals you applied to your tree would have much, if any effect on bacterial disease, even expensive products like Orbit, and most particularly the useless combo sprays sold by Bonide. The best tactic against bacterial disease is to delay its onset, and that is done with one or two thorough dormant sprays of a copper product like Kocide that has some real copper strength. You should begin dormant spraying with copper while the trees are young, well before any evident signs of disease appear, just as you would with any stone fruit tree. With foresight, you may be able to hold off this disease for an additional 5-10 years, and you should apply dormant copper to your existing tree as well, although you are conducting a rearguard action that cannot cure the disease at this stage.

Rather than putting a lot of money into expensive chemicals that will do your tree no good, I suggest you put the bucks into a new Northstar or Meteor tree that will be ready to take over when your existing tree checks out, as it surely will do.

I planted a new Meteor 5 years ago when the handwriting was on the wall, and a new Montmorency this spring. The new Meteor is covered with fruit and ready this season to take over from the last old tree I removed. Both my climate and yours, BTW, are ideally suited to growing tart cherries. Some years I have had so many that I made 20 gallons of wine from pure juice.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Don's right, actually. I didn't read post carefully and thought we were talking sweet cherries.

Jellyman; First off I want to say THANK YOU. I actually want to thank both you and harvestman for making time and taking time to educiate people like me. I know you could have just as eaisly read the post and went on to something else that was more demanding of your time.

Getting that prognosis was a lot like when I took my dog to the vet, he was old and I knew before I took him in that the news was probably not going to be all that good.

I still miss my dog, and I think I'm going to miss my cherry tree too. It's been a rather fine fixture for some time now. But I planted a container grown Montmorency two years ago, so it ought to be able to take up the slack. I still think I'll order in a bare-root Northstar to get in and going too.

In the meantime, I'm gonna get ahold of some Kocide and see about prolonging the existing NS. So far there are no cankers on the limbs/twigs/etc. Just the leaf rust & BR thing. So maybe it'll hold out a few more years.

Thanks again! (Now I'm off to post a Raspberry question)

We have a North Star tree that has never borne any fruit. We were sure these were self-polinating, but we cannot figure out why there is no fruit. Any ideas would be helpful.