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Fruit & Orchards

What can I graft onto a old Cherry tree ???

12 years ago

Hi all , I have 3 old pie cherry trees that don't produce much in the way of edible cherries . Every June we get hundreds of tiny tart cherries and the birds won't even eat them off the trees . We inherited them when we bought our place . The wife says if they don't produce a decent tasting cherry again this year she want's them gone. I really do not want to cut them down next winter.

What I would like to do is Graft something onto the trees . plum maybe ,I know they are both Prunus . but are they compatible? Any advise on what cultivars will take to being grafted on cherry stock ?

Thanks

Cody

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Comments (6)

Konrad___far_north
12 years ago
No plum,.. I would cut them down really good now, branches like a foot or so down to the main trunk this year. Let them grow new wood [water sprouts] and graft next spring onto these about 10 inches out. Any good pie and sweet cherries, you could get a instant 10 variety going next year.
dmtaylor
12 years ago
I would suggest same as konrad -- cut branches way way back to about a foot from the trunk, allow new sprouts to come out of the "stumps" this season, then next spring try grafting some good tasting varieties to the sprouts. The tree will look goofy for a few years, but after 6 or 7 years it will look almost normal again and you'll have a great crop of great tasting cherries of whatever varieties you like. There are a lot of good online resources about how to do this. Look up stephenhayesuk on YouTube as I know he's got more than one video about "grafting over" an old tree (in his case it's with apples but the concept for cherries is the same).
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I have read that in this instance that people can do two grafts. The native variety being the most hardy and strongest rooting, then a short intermediary piece which can bridge between the native and fruiting varieties. Can anyone assist? Or know someone who can? I have cut down a large native cherry and would like to graft lapins and stella to the sprouts which are sure to come up this spring. "example taken from plum/almond stone fruit grafting" - " Also (and this is where the fun starts) most fruit trees in the Prunus genus are sometimes compatible with each other: almonds, apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums all are compatible for grafting, but occasionally it's complicated. For example, some plum rootstock is not compatible with peaches or nectarines; and some almonds require an intermediate step before grafting onto some plum rootstocks."
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Edymnion
12 years ago
Agreed.

Your trees are well established, use them for grafting hosts. Has to be other types of cherry, but you could go hog wild and graft as many types of cherry branch to them as you can get your hands on. Have a veritable cherry fruit salad tree.
skyjs
12 years ago
Pie cherry trees are good for whip and tongue grafting as well as budding in the summer. If you don't like Montmorency, you could graft on sweet cherry. I have read warnings about this, but I dont know if I believe them. IT is a different species.
John S
PDX OR
parker25mv
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
It is possible to graft sweet cherry onto tart cherry, but it most often does not do the best. It is also possible to graft plum onto cherry, but I think the compatibility level between the two may be poor (I'm not entirely sure though).

The plum rootstock Adara (Prunus cerasifera) is compatible with cherry. Ken Coates, who has been a commercial grafter for almost 30 years, used Adara as an interstem to graft cherry onto plum.

http://www.goodfruit.com/goodbye-plum-hello-cherry/
samsaraedu
7 years ago
I received an email last week from Stark Bros saying that Luther Burbank was a long time collaborator with them (famous for plums etc) and he grafted over 200 varieties of cherry onto one tree that was successfully fruiting.

So I say go crazy with it, play mad scientist cause you're sure to get something of an improvement on it. I'd just make sure to prune it well so when the good fruit does come in you can net the tree from the birds. No sense in doing all the hard work and then serving up a buffet for them only.

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