Cherry trees: stress them a little.
- too healthy, into leaves and shoots.
If there's too many branches, then they'll put all their energy into leaves and shoots
- soil type doesn't matter
spring: pelletised chicken manure
winter: again
mulch it through winter
But they need to be mulched through the winter, and fed early spring (probably July for us) and winter (I'd guess April, just before mulching.)
- chill factor - 700hours 8C or lower
That's about 1 month below 8C. It can definitely work in the colder parts of Sydney - southern plains, western Sydney, and up in the northern hills districts where we spend most of June and July between 5-10C at nights. I've had a pretty good cherry crop in Sydney, but I'm attributing the fact that it wasn't 'really good' to my ignorance on how to manage a crop.
Pruning: I think this is probably where the rubber hits the road for me.
For seedlings
December: cut back to 50mm
- take the vigorous ones out
- too vigorous too healthy
The trees on the program each had long skinny branches that had multiple fruits on them. I've been trimming my long branches back to shorter stubs because that's how to do it with larger stone fruit and with apples. Looks like it was a mistake - too many opportunities for the energy to go into leaves, not enough energy to go into fruit. So later this summer, I'll be chopping back the tree - take out the really big branches quite heavily, maybe stump one or two of the medium branches and see if we get the long, thin growths around it. Can't hurt, right?
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