Re: [nafex] Re: prunus tormentosa and robins

["del stubbs" <pinewoodel@hotmail.com>]

	a local oldtimer , when he'd learned id planted nanking cherries and was 
delighted with their growth in their 3rd year( they were 75 cents i recall, 
conservation grade grom the soils and water people) he said "unless you can 
keep the robins off of them when the berries are just tiny little green 
specks youll never have a crop.....  we watched with bated breath......alas! 
Fair Robin Redbreast likes baby nankings as well as the first worm!    the 
question is what ELSE do they devour before one even realizes there is the 
first hope of a crop? so now we'll net cover the cherries, just after petal 
fall, to force the little beauties to keep to their beautiful carnivorous 
selves and maybe keep out the legions of hungry chipmunks as well
                                      minnesota del

>From: dwoodard@becon.org
>Reply-To: nafex@egroups.com
>To: nafex@egroups.com
>Subject: [nafex] Re: Hardy Cherries
>Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 07:24:03 -0000
>
>--- In nafex@egroups.com, Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@g...> wrote:
>
> > My soil is mainly sandy with about a foot of organic topsoil,
>drainage is
> > good, not much clay. ...5 ft snow cover... Also, the site is well
>protected against cold North winds.
> >
> > My cherry trees are not vigorous, but they survive - I have a 15
>year old
> > Montmorency and a Meteor. They are affected by this gumming
>sickness, but I
> > don't know if it is the lack of vigour that render them susceptible
>to the
> > sickness or vice-versa. I also planted an Evans last year - it is
>too soon
> > to know how it will do. Wild P.virginiana and P.pensylvanica strive
> > everywhere around the orchard.
>
>If you have the space and money I suggest that you try Michurin sour
>cherry, available from Ken Taylor and possibly from other nurseries
>in Quebec. I imagine that it originated with Michurin at Michurinsk
>(now again Kozlov) which I think has a climate similar to Ottawa.
>I believe it was propagated from the Vineland collection (the sour
>cherries have since been moved) where it was known as Fruchtbare von
>Michurin; I believe it came via the USA and Germany.
>
>Ken Taylor told me that his Michurin had cropped heavily every year
>for more than ten years including 1994 after the famous test winter,
>on his high exposed ridge (admittedly on sand). His Meteor and North
>Star, growing in a more sheltered location, low near the lakeshore,
>not only were severely damaged and did not crop that year but had not
>recovered from damage suffered in an earlier and milder winter. The
>classical Montmorency did not survive test winters with Ken. He says
>that Michurin is a small dwarf tree growing to about 3 metres
>unpruned if I recall rightly, a morello like North Star and I
>understand Evans/Bala (dark juice, as opposed to Montmorency and
>Meteor which are amarelles with light coloured juice). Bala is the
>name under which Bill MacKently of St. Lawrence Nurseries, New York
>State sold Evans in the past.
>
>A lady cherry researcher at a Michigan university reported that
>Michurin bloomed nine days after Montmorency.  The late Henri Bernard
>reported that Michurin seemed to him somewhat more disease resistant
>than Montmorency. Ken and Henri said that Michurin was markedly
>sweeter than Montmorency and could be eaten fresh with pleasure
>(although I also enjoy Montmorency fresh when they are dead ripe).
>
>I would like to see several people in cold areas grow both Evans/Bala
>and Michurin and report on their relative merits and weaknesses.
>Also, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that they are the
>same, and this ought to be checked out.
>
>For comparison, there used to be a commercial sour cherry planting,
>mostly Montmorency with a few English Morello, with a grower
>(Rutter's) at Bloomfield in Prince Edward County, the large peninsula
>projecting from the north shore of Lake Ontario, zone 6a, which was
>wiped out in the severe winter of 1980-81.  As far as I know it was
>not replanted.
>
>Ken had or has a hardy sweet cherry which he calls Quebec Bigarreau
>or Biga, which originated from a Bing seed near the shore below
>Quebec City.  He told me that Biga seemed to have a degree of self-
>fertility, although Ken has quite a number of Prunus species about
>his place. The tree of Biga which Ken showed me in 1997 was then he
>said about 20 years old and was showing some winter injury, probably
>nearing the end of its lifespan.
>
>I note that there are some cultivars of chokecherry (Prunus
>virginiana) and pin cherry (Prunus pennsylvanica) sold by nurseries
>in the Prairie provinces. I think that some experiment station work
>has been done on them, at Beaverlodge, Alberta among others.
>
>Claude, have you grown Nanking cherry (Prunus tomentosa)? I have not,
>but I have been told that the best of them are quite good. There are
>selections which are sold for fruit, by among others Ken Taylor, and
>Beaverlodge Nurseries (if they are still in business). There are also
>unselected plants sold by mass-market nurseries on the P. T. Barnum
>principle ("there's a sucker born every minute"). Ditto for Mongolian
>cherry, Prunus fruticosa.
>
>Douglas Woodard
>

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