There are many reasons for the buds falling off. The flowers may have not been pollinated, the tree could be too immature to set, or you may have gotten shoot blight (its a form of brown rot). Brown rot always ends up being a problem on cherries, usually the fruit rots as it ripens. The shoot blight form is less common. You need to spray lime-sulphur plus oil at delayed dormant -- just before the leaves come out. Then, spray sulphur around the rainy periods during the spring. Roughly three sprays total in an average year. Use a sticker with the sulphur to keep it on the tree. Also when you get fruit watch out for the bugs, you may need to spray Surround to irritate them.

Sweet cherries are hard to grow organically outside of the west coast, but its possible. I grew mine 100% organic for 10+ years. Now I do one spray of propiconazole in the spring, for brown rot, and all the rest is organic. Black Gold is a relatively good sweet cherry. I had half of mine crack in the heavy rains this spring, but thats standard for sweet cherries in our climate (and another thing that makes them difficult).

Scott

Copper is recommended on bacterial canker by the oldtimers around here. Not specifically for cherries, because they never grew those, but in general. You might research copper on cherries for that oozing.

I had ooze from a bad place on my almond tree early last year, used Bordeaux Mixture (I have a can of powder) and it really worked for that tree. I used a really sharp knife and cut thin slices of the bad spot out until I saw good wood before using the copper, too. I've had no problems since, but I did do a dormant treatment of Bordeaux this winter just in case.

I'm on my second sweet cherry tree in 47 years. The first one froze in the early 90's when the temp dropped 80 degrees in one day in early Oct. The one I have now just produced the largest crop of all time.
I guess you could say I grow organic, both trees have never been sprayed and they have. never had worms. I am careful to always clean up under the tree and leave no mummies. The only fertilizer they get is from the lawn fertilizer once a year.
On this tree early on, I remember it had a broken branch, and we cut it off to the collar. It healed well. I remember painting the stub, but that is a practice not done anymore.
I remember seeing sap once, but did nothing for it. None since.
The tree came from Starks and is Stella.
Thats my cherry tree story, hope it will be of help down the line.

There is no great treatment for canker on cherries. Copper is not reliable but is worth using for a delayed dormant spray if there was a previous infection. I agree cutting out cankers can work if its only on one side of a larger trunk. But cover the wound or lay copper on it, otherwise its inviting more infection. Any small limb with a canker should be completely removed.

In my cherries my best solution has been to keep the tree pruned open to let lots of light in, and to cut out any cankers as soon as I see them. I also spray dormant copper when I am having infection problems. Luckily I have not lost a whole tree to canker in a dozen years.

Flower girl, Kansas is much drier than east coast conditions. Sweet cherries are much more difficult to grow here due to bacterial canker and a host of other problems.

Scott

The bacteria that causes the disease has developed a resistance to copper and copper is no longer recommended. Unfortunately, there is no reliable chemical control of bacterial canker. There has been testing done with various chemicals. Kasumin showed the most promise. Right now, good cultural practices are what is recommended to help control canker