The sour cherry does fine in less sun.

I hope you have another sweet cherry variety nearby as I am sure Bing is not self-pollinating? Montmorency is self-pollinating but will not work as a pollinator for the sweet cherry.

So two things:

First, I made a mistake. My sweet cherry is NOT a bing. It is a 'Stella'. I don't know if that changes anything.

Second, the tag on the Stella cherry listed Montmorency as a pollinator. Does that seem right or am I being sold a lie?

David:

I grow Bing and Montmorency so that is why I answered what I did above. Stella is supposed to be a self-pollinating sweet cherry so you should be ok on pollination.

OK good. Do you live in the midwest and can you provide any other suggestions? I read a lot of posts about insect pests being a problem for cherries.....

Get ready to spray. In many areas, cherry trees would suffer common diseases like cherry leave spot and canker and brown rot.

There are insects that like to bore into cherries, too, but birds are the main culprit.

When do I spray? If the trees are in bloom is a bad idea to spray them?

I would also greatly appreciate a recommended product for fruit tree spraying.

David:

I grow both sweets and sours. The BIGGEST pest for me is birds. I have to net as soon as I see the fruit turning a light pink or the fruit is gone in a matter of days. Robins are the worst culprits.

Cherry leaf spot is a fungal issue that I sometimes get on my tart cherry collection but have not yet had it on the sweet cherries. To prevent, spray with a fungicide containing chlorothalonil from white bud stage thru shuck split stage. Illegal to use chlorothalonil after that until after the fruit is harvested. If you get leaf spot later in the season, then spray again after fruit harvest. This is a prevention not a control. It will not eradicate existing leaves infected. Some years I have no leaf spot, some years a little. One year it got so bad it defoliated my Surecrop tart cherry my August 15th. Some tarts seem more susceptible to it than others depending on variety.

I got brown rot only once and that was because it was a very cloudy and rainy week just when the fruit was ripe. Having my tree netted did not help as the shade it produces most likely made the disease spread faster. The bad thing about netting is that once the net is on, I do not spray so if brown rot shows up, I have to live with it.

Brown rot can be prevented by spraying Captan when the fruit is nearly ripe. Check the label but I think the PHI is only a few days for Captan. Bonide Infuse will also work although I have no experience with that product but hear good reports about it as it is systemic and will eradicate existing infections to an extent. Captan will work as a preventative spray only.

Excellent help, thank you!