Thanks for the input here. My wife called me at work just now to tell me that White-crowned Sparrows appear to be eating the BB-sized cherries already! Could that be? Would birds eat them when they're barely big enough to even see? Should I net the tree now to play it safe?

Frank: What cherry are you growing that is coloring already? I have grown North Star for many years. Not colored yet but soon. As far as netting, at the first sign of pink I spray one application of Malathion (short residual) in the hope of controlling cherry fruit fly. Then I net the tree. No spraying after netting even if I do get powdery mildew sometimes. As far as netting, I use a post pounder and put in 4-8' stakes suitable for staking up a tomato plant in each corner around the tree. Since these are too short, I attach another 4' stake that is perhaps 1/2" diameter to the top of the post with a large automotive hose clamp. ON top of the smaller stake, I put on an upside down gallon milk jug. This is to prevent the stake from tearing the netting. Then I slide the top stake thru the loose hose clamp as high as I need to go and tighten the clamp. This system makes it easy to adjust for height as the tree gets taller. The netting is a large plastic netting thaI I stretch out behind the tree. We use two garden rakes to lift the netting and carefully get it over the tree (short stepladder on each side of the tree is helpful). This is not easy unless you have the whole family out then everyone pitches in. Once the net is over the tree, I staple the netting on the top sides of the 4 stakes. The bottom 1/2 is not stapled but drapes down. The netting touches the ground so I put a long wood stake horizontal along the ground to hold each side down in the wind and prevent birds from going underneath. This system allows me to lift up the netting on the sides and put my 6' stepladder inside to pick the fruit. Usually I make several pickings as the fruit in the center of tree ripens last. Fortunately my North Star is pruned to 8' height as too tall makes it hard to net. Last year I got 28 quarts of cherries (after pitting)! This year the crop is lighter but still a crop. Since my apples/pears/plums frosted out this year, at least I have some cherries to pick once ripe. Out of 3 tart cherry trees, this one made it thru the spring frosts due to location. Yes it is work, but if I don't net at the first sign of pink on the fruit, the birds will clean me out in just a few days.

dgrooms: The only way this is going to be easier is if you build a frame to support the netting. While you're at it why not cover it with a permanent screen, perhaps of half in galvanized hardware cloth. A tree that size won't be all that much of a job. The fruit will be worth it and think how happy your wife will be!! I had a permanent frame over some trees one time and loved it. Just remember to consider your max snow load when you build the frame. If you decide to go with a temporary netting, a frame of one inch sch40 PVC would be easy to slip netting over. Your netting would last longer, it won't be resting on the tree, and it would be easier to get inside to pick the fruit. The Fruitnut

"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.