Cherries

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Sweet cherry (Latin Prunus avium) - woody plants of the Pink family. The plant is popularly called bird cherry. In the wild, sweet cherry grows in the southern regions of Russia, North Africa, Ukraine, the Caucasus and many European countries. It is considered one of the oldest forms of cherry.

Characteristics of culture

Sweet cherry is a tree up to 10 m high, there are specimens reaching 30 m. The crown, depending on the growing conditions, can be ovoid or cone-shaped. A distinctive feature of sweet cherries is the presence of two-type shoots - brachilasts and auxiblasts. The bark of young trees is brown, reddish or silvery, with numerous stripes and lenticels, often flaky with transverse thin films.

The root system is horizontal, often vertical. The taproot is formed within two years of life, then branches. Cherry buds are vegetative, generative and mixed, they are located, respectively, on growth and fruit shoots. The leaves are serrate, slightly wrinkled, elliptical, oblong-ovate or obovate. Petioles 10-16 cm long, equipped with two glands at the base of the leaf blade.

The flowers are white, almost sessile, collected in a few-flowered umbrellas, usually formed on the shoots before the leaves open. There are five sepals. The fruit is a real drupe, oval, spherical or heart-shaped, has a fleshy and juicy pericarp, depending on the variety, it can be from light yellow to dark red or burgundy in color. The stone is elongated or spherical, smooth. The seed consists of a yellowish brown rind, embryo, and endosperm.

Growing conditions

Sweet cherry is a light-loving culture, it prefers the most illuminated, windproof areas without stagnation of cold air and melt water. Soils are desirable rich, drained, aerated, moisture-absorbing, moisture-permeable, with a pH of 6, 7-7, 5. The optimum level of groundwater occurrence is 1.5 m. Cherry does not accept heavy clay, peat, saline, waterlogged soils and deep sandstones. The most successful for growing crops are gentle south-western and southern slopes, as well as elevated areas located on the southern side of buildings and other structures. It is more correct to grow the culture in several copies, it is good if cherries grow in the garden, which bloom at the same time as the cherry.

Reproduction and planting

Cherry is propagated by seeds, pneumatic shoots and root suckers. The seed method is unpredictable. Trees grown from seed do not retain the characteristics of the parent plant. They will grow without problems, but what fruits will subsequently appear will be known only after 3-4 years. Reproduction of cherries by grafting is not prohibited. As a stock, it is recommended to use such varieties of cherries as Pink bottle, Vladimirskaya, Rastunya and Shubinka, as well as Rubin, Izmailovskaya, Muscovy, etc. Cuttings for grafting are harvested in the fall and stored in the refrigerator until spring.

Cherry seedlings are planted in early spring, but before the buds swell. A planting pit is prepared in the fall, its depth should be 50-60 cm, and its width should be 80 cm. 1-2 buckets of humus mixed with the top layer of fertile soil are poured onto the bottom of the pit. In the spring, superphosphate (0.3-0.4 kg), sodium sulfate (100-120 g) and wood ash are introduced into the pit. You should not increase the dose of fertilizers, as this can lead to the formation of a large number of strong growths, which, as a rule, do not have time to mature before the onset of stable frosts.

Deep planting of cherry seedlings is highly undesirable. The root collar should be 4-5 cm above the soil surface. A shallow moon is formed around the seedling, watered abundantly and mulched with peat or humus. In two-year-old seedlings, the branches are shortened, subordinating them to the center. If planting is late, pruning cannot be carried out. The optimal distance between trees is 3 m.

Care

In general, caring for cherries does not differ from caring for other fruit and berry crops. It is important to keep the soil in the near-trunk zone loose and free from weeds. Compaction of the soil should not be allowed. Once every three years in the fall, cherries are fed with organic and mineral fertilizers (humus - 0.5 buckets, superphosphate - 50 g, potassium sulfate - 30 g, ammonium nitrate - 20 g).

Watering should be fairly regular and abundant, during a drought at least once a week. Watering is especially necessary during the ripening period of the berries, otherwise it can lead to their cracking. In sweet cherry, shoot growth is very intense, so you need to carry out annual formative pruning. It is carried out only in early spring. Such procedures are prohibited in autumn and winter.

At the initial stage, before the beginning of fruiting, annual shoots are shortened by 1/5. In the future, remove all the branches that go inside the crown. Cherry and sanitary pruning is required, which consists in pruning broken, diseased and dry branches, followed by processing the cuts with garden putty. In autumn, the trunks and bases of the skeletal branches of cherries are whitened, and for the winter they are tied with spruce branches or any other covering material.

Fighting intruders - birds

Many gardeners are familiar with the problem of bird destruction of the berry crop. No wonder the plant is called bird cherry. A real and effective way is to cover cherries with nets, they are light and convenient, and their price is relatively low. You can also use materials at hand, for example, install mirrors, rattles on trees, hang foil or any other reflective material. True, this method does not work for long, the birds quickly understand everything and continue to peck berries.