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Fruit & Orchards

Grafting sweet cherries in cold country

10 years ago

I'm interested in finding some sweet cherries that will fruit in zone 4, southeast MN. I saw some earlier discussions, and wonder if there's any recent news. 2 questions:

Anyone have experience with Sollero sweet cherry from Sweden? Grows near Sollero in Sweden, 60 degrees north and inland from the sea -- long, cold winters. Sounds interesting.

Konrad in Manitoba -- still working on grafting sweet cherries? I'd be interested in you update.

Tom in MN

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Comments (4)

Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
10 years ago
Hi Tom,
I'm two provinces over, [Alberta] ...still experimenting with the odd sweet cherries. At around minus 32C you'll find bud kill, so now I'm trying to graft low and have branches tie low to the ground and hopefully get covered with snow in winter, I might cover some up. Are the Sollero sweet bud hardier?
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huntertshouse
Original Author
10 years ago
Konrad,

Spring is on the way here this year -- a nice week. Don't know a lot yet about the Sollero cherries, but it appears they grow commonly in an area that does get cold winters. Average winter lows are about -10, which is comparable to what we get. Extremes show about -38. There are a lot of microclimates in Sweden, so it's hard to be specific.

What varieties of sweet cherry do you have the most hope for? Are you grafting onto pin cherry, prunus pennsylvanica?
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mamuang I hope you don't cut it down. Do you top graft them to another variety? I graft my rejects over to sour cherries which are relatively easy to grow here. ltilton is the flavor pretty good on white gold? fruitnut the sweet cherries do seem to be picky on their growing requirements. I wasted a lot of money as well growing them in the orchard and lost a couple of large orders before I learned our clay/lome soil does not drain as fast as they like. I now grow them on artificial hills I made similar to terraces and the rootstock grows fine there. I went and checked them out this morning and the rootstock did fine I started this year. This post was edited by ClarkinKS on Sun, Oct 19, 14 at 15:52
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Hello Grafters Remember... Mazzard (Prunus avium) or Mahaleb (P. mahaleb) seedlings. is used in sweet cherry growing region, Missouri is mostly zone 5 & 6, also Canada, BC is using these seedlings. Alberta is not included, [too cold in winter] these seedling would not survive here, they are rated for zone 4, we are zone 3, this is why I use the hardier Pincherry , Sour Evans Cherry , or Amur Cherry root stock. I will announce our annual scion wood exchange in a separate thread. Konrad
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Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
10 years ago
last modified: 10 years ago
OK..one needs to know exactly where these Sollero's are growing and with correct winter low temp. Average doesn't mean much, it only takes one night of minus 34C to kill flower buds, at minus 38 they would be toast for sure!

Some years ago a fellow grower was teaching us at the club about Alaskan growers using prunus Maackii root stock and growing sweet cherries! 10 years later still no sweet cherries in the Edmonton area reliably.

Guess we didn't get taught the rest of the story! [low temperature]

Right now I'm testing a couple of Russian cultivars...not sure what in my head,..let you know if anything is promising but I have very little hope.

In the meantime,...these wonderful Evans are still very nice!
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huntertshouse
Original Author
10 years ago
Konrad, how do you get ahold of Russian cultivars? Do you go through the bureaucratic process of importation? Or do you simply have a friend mail them to you??? The exact place the Sollero cherries grow is called Siljansnas, Sweden -- it's on google maps, and you can find the USDA zones at plantmaps.com, which has a USDA map for Sweden.
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