Information for whoever might care to read it. I live in Dodge City,Ks. I am now growing my 2nd Stella sweet cherry. The first one froze back in the early 90's when we had a temp drop of over 80 degrees in one day in Oct. The first tree easily produced over 100 lbs of cherries if the frost didn't catch it. This is a semi-dwarf tree.We always netted it. The fruit is great tasting and has a great crunchy quality. The new tree produced some fruit the 3rd year. It is self pollinating. I'm thinking its about 10 years old now and we have had 1 bumper crop. Really 2, but we didn't net it and the birds and neighbor kids got a lot of the cherries. We never have sprayed either tree and have never seen a worm so far. I got this tree from Stark Bros. There has been only one year we haven't picked cherries since it began producing. Had a bad late freeze that year. The only cherries saved were under the hanging leaves. My brother lives 52 miles from me and he has the same kind of tree, with the same result. We think its the greatest.

Mika: The Good Fruit Grower is a good magazine. It is out of Washington state but has articles about Eastern US and international fruit growing on a regular basis. I've been reading it for about 20yrs and have learned more there than any other way. The subscription is reasonable, $75 for 3yrs. The tunnel work is being done at Benton Harbor where trees were just planted and at Clarksville in a 7yr old planting. Work is headed up by Dr Gregory Lang. Don't know about website but you could check MSU hort website and likely find something. Frank: I wondered as well when they covered the crop in the spring. Article didn't say. But did say it is covered during bloom and I think all summer. They said they are going to try a black ground cover during bloom to warm soil and keep down weeds then add a reflective ground cover after bloom. I have a reflective soil cover on my greenhouse floor all yr. It serves to put more light into the foliage and has been shown to help sweet cherries in Washington state. It also may discourage insects like whiteflies that are drawn to areas with bright sky above and dark foliage below. In my greenhouse both the sky and floor are bright. It was also very interesting to me that some insects like Jap Beetle and possibly Plum Curculio may not fly into areas without UV radiation because they use that wavelenght of light to navigate. I like my greenhouse because I cann't get a sunburn in there as the poly blocks 100% of UV. Also think it is safer on my eyes when I don't wear sunglasses as compared to outside where I think sunglasses are necessary. It also might be true that pesticides, when needed, may last longer under the tunnel because they are not washed off by rain and will likely be less affected by sunlight. So these are very complicated systems but the people doing the work think they hold promise for organic or integrated pest control. At the very least you have protection from rain and a framework for bird netting. The Fruitnut

Leftwood, After talking with Bors about these previous experiments at Sask grafting high I found out it applied only to using less than 2 year old pie cherry seedlings as scions. Apparently such seedlings when less than 2 years old grow out of sync. and often winter kill (when left growing that way) where as the more mature bigger trees work in sync. (stop growing soon enough). Using these young scions when grafting high to mature trees makes them change to act more mature... thus the act of grafting high saves tender seedling types from otherwise freezing to death. In light of these facts it now appears that maybe grafting high tender varieties on a hardy rootstock no longer applies the way I used to think because it applies to making seedlings cold hardier which in itself might have nothing to do with how hardy the rootstock your grafting to is... Notice I said might. So I'm going to give it a shot using sweet cherries high on the hardy Amur cherry anyways. Who knows. Grafting on Amur cherry is good anyways for vole prevention. Has anyone seen a moose eat Amur cherry? I havn't. Neither has Dr. Bors seen it. He's tasted them and says the reason must be that the wood is too tart. He's also pulled opened freezers with his hybrid pie cherries inside and says the whole freezer smells really great (ie. compelling to herbivores) as of sweet cherries.

The "wild" cherry trees you see turning portions of local wooded hillsides white in spring - where they are often taller than the native alder trees around them - are the same species, planted everywhere and gone wild. And, of course, the big old sweet cherry trees you see on old home and orchard sites are the same species as that little whip you brought home from the nursery. So, yes, the tree has a genetic blueprint to shoot up (and out, where not crowded) quickly to form a large specimen. Dwarfing rootstocks have been used to try and overcome this but in the past results have been limited, the "dwarf" cherry tree from the garden center eventually taking off and becoming a source of consternation. The main cherry problems are fruit cracking, bacterial canker, and damage to the crop by birds. The introduction of dwarfing rootstocks such as Gisela 5 makes it possible for home growers and orchardists to grow small, manageable trees that can be netted for bird protection. Adding a rain cover to the bird net is a possibility. Select varieties that have less genetic tendency to crack  usually those with somewhat softer flesh. Also, later ripening varieties (late July) may take advantage of the better weather and late market opportunities Here is a link that might be useful: Cherry Variety Trials