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rwiegand

My kingdom for a cherry

6 years ago

Well more than one actually-- last year I got two, but my bucket list includes being able to make a pie.


I have two trees of Montmorency and one Lapins here (Eastern MA), currently 7, 5, and 4 years post planting. At my previous house I had a Montmorency and Northstar, They were 15 years old when we left. The trees are in robust good health, the oldest has a trunk ~3" in diameter. The ones at our other house, a half mile away) were fully mature.


The trees flower heavily, we had no frost this year during or after flowering. We have about 10 bee hives in the yard, so no shortage of bee visitation. I also encourage mason bees with habitat and overwintering support.


So the biggest tree has about 10 cherries, the Lapins three. These guys are supposed to be self fertile, but even having two varieties that should cross pollinate (Northstar and Montmorency) didn't help. It's never been worthwhile to put up the bird netting because so little fruit sets. Cherries aren't grown commercially here, perhaps for a reason? My peaches and plums produce a lot when they don't freeze.


Any suggestions on how get more fruit to set on these trees? You can't buy pie cherries at any of the markets here and I'm getting old.

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