Thanks Ace. That is exactly what I had on my tree. I just removed all the green cherries that had the marks on them. Unfortunately, that leaves only about a half a dozen left. Sad, but I guess i'll be prepared for next year. It looks like fruit trees are a lot of work. :( Also, I noticed that I have a few ants on my cherry tree and other berry bushes around my yard. Should I do something to control them?

dohertyc9, I wouldn't worry about spraying anything this growing season, until you see a problem. At least that's pretty much how I manage my non-bearing trees. An exception might be borers. If you know the area has a problem with borers, that might justify a preventative treatment. Peach trees bear pretty early, but if yours only had 4 blooms it's likely most (or all) of those will fall off. Triazicide or carbaryl (Sevin) will help control Japanese beetle. Sevin is probably slightly more effective than Triazicide. Dormant sprays must be done in the dormant season. Oil can be sprayed in the growing season, but only at a lower rate. At this time, there is probably no point in spraying oil. The next dormant season, you'll probably want to spray your peach tree for peach leaf curl. Treehugger, Codling moth doesn't attack stone fruits.

you dont want to take the time to rotate the pix.. but i should take the time ... blah.. blah.. blah ... 2nd pic.. why the giant staking procedure .. how big is that tree. and how long has it been there???? is this a fruit tree or an ornamental flowering cherry???? third pic.. any conifer that does not grow is dead ... but dead ones cna hold their needles for a year or so.. until hot weather browns them.. and makes them fall off ....is it supposed to be yellow??? or blue/green ... but dead ones.. eventually shed leaves ... i say.. rotate this pic.. and post it in the conifer forum ... [what the heck did you edit out of that pic.. lol.. the neighbor standing in your pic with a silly grin????] i know the first pic is a problem.. but i am blanking on it ... ken

"subgenus" may be more appropriate (or maybe not, taxonomists have put both sweet and sour cherries into the subgenus Cerasus). All these different cherry species are very closely related, if one wants to consider them different species. This is one example where the line separating different species is not a clear one. It could even be possible to consider the different cherry families as subspecies. After all, if they can freely interbreed and hybridize with each other, can they not be considered members within the same species? (by this definition we could divide all cherries into only 2 groups: those with 16 chromosomes and those with 32) Or one could attempt to divide cherries into different families: Sweet cherries (P. avium), sour cherries, Black cherries plus Capulin native to the American continent (put into same group), and Asian flowering cherries. Perhaps better classification could be provided if taxonomists utilized multiple degrees of species relatedness/separation, because it is ambiguous whether some of the different cherries should be classified as entirely separate species or subspecies within a singular species, neither of which would be wholly accurate.