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).

Joe: Dare to believe; its true. Chilling hours for apples are a myth; I'm not in the mountains- I grow over 100 apple varieties 1/4 mile from the Parent Washington Navel Orange tree in Riverside on 200 chilling hours. I tore out a big clump of banana trees to plant the orchard, which is getting ready to bloom now right next to my neighbor's big Valencia orange tree. Do not look to university programs to validate this; there's no money in it, and their research is devoted to commercial growers. You will not read it in scholarly books either, as they just quote one another rather than actually sticking a tree in the ground to see what happens. However this has not gone unnoticed; Tom Spellman at Dave Wilson Nursery did a few nice videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jwtYhS2Qcs If you're still needing more assurance, check out the Ba' Kelalan Apple Fiesta in Borneo, Malaysia where the apple orchard is next to the rice paddies and they eat their apple pie off a banana leaf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0yW7U_ddQ I know this goes against everything that you've ever heard about apples, so I understand; if you still can't get a grip on it, check out some of our clients in tropic Africa at http://kuffelcreek.wordpress.com/

I am not able to answer your question but after reading your post, I would like to ask why it takes so long to produce fruit. How large is the new blood orange? I have a dwarf moro, and mine isn't even 1.5ft yet. I was told I would have fruit in a year. I know based on its size right now that that will never happen. I just hope I don't have to wait that long to get fruit from my moro blood orange. I don't know if I would have the patience to wait that long considering that I live in zone 6 and I have many, many, other citrus and tropical fruits that will bear fruit in a year or two! Good luck with finding your answer. If you don't get a response you may want to check out the tropical fruit forum. I personally know some people there who would be helpfull with your grafting issue. Andrew

I have a multigraft Asian pear on OHxF333. I believe that D'Anjou pear is grafted onto the OHxF333 rootstock and then 4 varieties of Asian pears are clip budded onto the Anjou whip. So the Anjou is acting as an inter-stem. Ultimately the tree is a 5x1 because I can still get the euro pear from the tree. I also have a 4x1 cherry on G5 rootstock. It has 3 sweets along with Montmorency. I've always read that you can't graft Tart cherry to sweet cherry. That makes me think that the G5 rootstock is grown into a whip and then all 4 varieties are budded onto the whip. What shoots this theory down is that the tree appears to have a graft union low to the ground. So I'm not sure whats going on. lol