2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Cherry plum, or spreading plum (lat. Prunus cerasifera) - fruit crop; genus of trees of the family Pink. Cherry plum is one of the original forms of home plum. Other names are cultural cherry plum, cherry plum, cherry plum, splayed cherry plum. In nature, cherry plum is found in mountainous areas in the Balkans, Tien Shan, Asia Minor and Central, Iran, Moldova, Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus and southern Ukraine. In Russia, cherry plum is cultivated in the Krasnodar Territory, Kursk, Rostov, Bryansk and Voronezh regions.
Characteristics of culture
Cherry plum is a fast-growing, unpretentious and highly productive crop with good adaptive ability and fresh fruits with excellent taste. The average lifespan of one tree is 30-50 years. Thanks to all of the above characteristics, cherry plum is becoming more and more popular among gardeners every year.
Cherry plum is a single or multi-stemmed tree with a height of 3-13 m, which forms a powerful, well-developed root system and a rounded-spreading crown during its growth. Shoots are thin, brownish-green in color. Leaves are elliptical, ovate, less often lanceolate. The flowers are single, white or pink, up to 20-40 mm in diameter, bloom simultaneously with the leaves or a little earlier. Cherry plum blooms in early May.
The fruit is a round or elongated odnokostyanka, weighing 6-60 g, with a longitudinal weakly pronounced groove and a light waxy coating. Depending on the variety, cherry plum fruits can have a wide variety of colors - from pale yellow to dark purple, sometimes even black. Fruits ripen in August - September.
Growing conditions
Cherry plum is a true southerner, the quantity and quality of the harvest entirely depends on the sun, which is why it is advisable to grow the crop in southern or southwestern areas. The plant has a negative attitude towards cold winds, and a place outside the walls of a house or other buildings will be an ideal option for placing it. Soils for cherry plum are preferable moderately moist, well-drained, fertile with a neutral pH reaction.
It is possible to grow crops on clay soils with the addition of sand and peat. Cherry plum is thermophilic, although to date, winter-hardy varieties have been bred that can withstand temperatures down to -35. As mentioned above, the culture is fast-growing, the first fruits appear in the second or third year after planting the seedlings. The plant is extremely rarely affected by diseases and pests. Most of the crop varieties are self-fertile; to obtain good yields, at least two trees are needed on the site, thorns and plums are not suitable for these purposes.
Reproduction and planting
Cherry plum is propagated by seeds, root shoots, cuttings and grafting. The seed method is quite effective and simple, as a result, you can get plants with high yields. Among gardeners, the most common method of propagation by root shoots. Shoots are harvested only from healthy one- or biennial plants, which are dug up in September or spring before bud break. The best offspring with roots and a branched aerial part are cut from the periphery of the crown projection. In the presence of underdeveloped fibrous roots, the offspring are grown in moist, well-fertilized and loose substrates.
Cherry plum is often propagated by lily and green cuttings, but for their rooting, film greenhouses with a substrate consisting of fertile soil, peat and sand (2: 1: 1) are required. Cuttings are harvested from the shoots of the current year in June, they are cut into segments 8-12 cm long with 5-7 internodes. Cuttings are treated with a solution of heteroauxin and planted in a substrate until rooting. Cherry plum is propagated by grafting on plum rootstocks, less often apricot, peach and felt cherry.
Care
Watering, fertilizing, loosening near-trunk circles, combating weeds, pests and diseases, forming and sanitary pruning - these are the main tasks of caring for cherry plum. Watering is carried out twice a year: the first two weeks after the beginning of flowering, the second - immediately after harvesting the fruits.
The plant reacts positively to feeding, responds with excellent growth and increased productivity. Cherry plum is fed three times per season: in early spring in the snow (ammonium sulfate, rotted manure or compost, superphosphate); during the period of ovary formation and during the budding period for the next year's harvest (phosphorus-potassium fertilizers).
In June-July, annual shoots are pinched. Sanitary pruning is carried out annually in early spring: diseased, frostbitten and broken branches are removed. In the first 2-3 years, the formative pruning of the branches is carried out very carefully, with excessive pruning, the yield of the next year will be low.
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