a stella cherry in sunny location, vanc. island, 4-6 yrs old, using dormant oil with fungicide x1or2 each winter, produces nice looking cherries which become lighter green colour over approx 2 wks.,--and all drop before ripening!!?? Tree is fertilized with 686 each yr. does anyone know what i can do to solve this problem? thanksvm pjrh
Even though Stella’s are self-fruitful I still would like to have another sweet Cherry close by. Unless an insect is causing the premature fruit drop there are some other reasons why this may be happening. Some people will feel that our underwatering and overwatering can cause the tree to slough off its fruit but we generally do not see the whole crop fall off the tree all at once. Stella’s here will slough off some of their fruit to expend more energy to the rest of the fruit on the tree. It is the trees mechanism for determining which and how much fruit it wants to have. Some trees will sense that they have too much fruit set on the tree and will selectively thin themselves. One thing to keep in mind is that Cherries love Calcium. For many years here the main fertilizer for production sweet Cherries was Calcium nitrate. If we give the trees ample Calcium it does not seem to matter as much whether we overwater or under water the tree, as much more of the fruit will stay on the tree with ground based applied Calcium. We found the same was true with certain Apples grown here as well, especially on the old, standard, pre-Emla rootstock, Red and Golden Delicious and Pippins. Give the tree ample water during the growing season, apply some Calcium, anywhere from a 10-30%, every other year for the 30% where you are, to the tree in late Winter, have the rains water it in for you and then wait a few years for the tree to get up to 8-10 years old and then you should have some nice crops. Even better crops if you have another sweet Cherry nearby. Jim
a stella cherry in sunny location, vanc. island, 4-6 yrs old, using dormant oil with fungicide x1or2 each winter, produces nice looking cherries which become lighter green colour over approx 2 wks.,--and all drop before ripening!!?? Tree is fertilized with 686 each yr. does anyone know what i can do to solve this problem? thanksvm pjrh[/QUOTE] Response: This may be due to the grub from the Plum Circulio beatle. Look for a small crescent shape mark on the fruit. This grub will cause stone fruits to drop prematurely.