Felt cherry is a unique variety that belongs to the plum variety. This crop not only has excellent taste, cherry of this variety is used for crossing with apricot, peach and even cherry plum. This crop is valued by many gardeners for its early ripening, high yield and resistance to frost. Moreover, even a novice gardener with no experience can grow felt cherries, provided that a few simple rules are followed.
This is exactly how to care for a felt cherry so that it pleases you with a good harvest for many years. How to pollinate correctly to remove large fruits, and useful tips from experienced gardeners will be described below.
What is the felt cherry variety?
What conditions are necessary for growing felt cherries?
How to plant felt cherry correctly
What should care be like?
Felt cherry received this name due to the presence of small fibers on its foliage and fruits. Cherry trees of this variety grow up to three meters in height. And such a culture is valued thanks to the very healthy berries, which contain the following elements:
One of undeniable advantages This variety is that this berry blooms and ripens almost two weeks earlier than similar crops. At the same time, its berries do not fall to the ground, unlike ordinary cherries.
As for breeding this crop, in most cases they resort to two methods, namely:
Such breeding methods are used when it is necessary to graft peach, apricot or cherry plum seeds onto cherries. We graft these fruits with an eye or using a cutting. Moreover, in such a question as what to graft onto a felt cherry, according to experienced gardeners, it is good to perform manipulation on cherries and plums.
It is worth noting that there is another method of breeding felt cherries - this is obtaining seedlings from seeds. This method is used when it is necessary to obtain new felt cherry bushes.
It is worth highlighting that this cherry variety is also used to strengthen slopes, as well as to create beautiful hedges.
The only drawback of this variety is that this bush is not durable. But if you properly care for the felt cherry, it will delight you with its beauty and generous fruiting for about 12 years.
In general, we can conclude that this cherry variety is very similar to ordinary cherries. And the only difference is that you can graft other fruits onto this crop. Because felt cherry is ideal for these purposes.
In order for the cultivation of felt cherries to bear fruit in the form of a generous harvest, it is necessary to choose the right zone in the front garden for planting and neighbors who will be fully compatible with this crop.
So, if you want to reap a rich harvest large berries, give preference only to well-lit places. Otherwise, the berries will gradually begin to become smaller, deformed and ripen much later. When choosing a place for a felt cherry, try to have neighboring trees such as plum, cherry plum or felt cherry. It is with these fruit trees best compatibility.
As for shrubs such as gooseberries, currants, raspberries and joshta, their proximity should be avoided.
Since it is with these crops that compatibility is the least. And if they grow in close proximity, you can forget about the harvest.
In general, in order for the bushes to be well pollinated, the best option will plant several felt cherry bushes at once. In this case, full compatibility and bountiful harvest will be provided.
One more important point for felt cherry is right choice the soil in which this crop will grow, and what type of minerals will nourish it. It is worth noting that this cherry variety is not particularly demanding to care for. But in order for it to please you with a good harvest, you need to choose the right area for planting it.
Most suitable soil- This fertile land with good drainage. If you choose a lowland for planting cherries, the root system will quickly begin to rot, and as a result the plant will die. In the case when the soil is increased acidity, it can be easily neutralized with slaked lime, which is applied once every two months.
As for pollination, in this case it is necessary to plant felt cherries with several varieties or sprouts in one area nearby. The fact is that such a crop is pollinated only when it grows with other plants of its own variety, which act as pollinators among themselves.
If you purchase felt cherries in the spring from nurseries, then planting is carried out until the buds begin to bloom. It is worth noting that this crop can be planted in the fall no later than September. In the case where the cherry bushes were purchased later, the most correct thing would be to dig them in until spring.
This crop is planted as follows:
After this agricultural planting technique has been completed, it is necessary to water the cherries thoroughly and then mulch them with peat or rotted manure.
If you are planting several seedlings of felt cherry, then you must maintain a distance of one meter between each bush. Thus, absolutely all felt cherry trees will be comfortable in the garden bed, while they will be able to pollinate, and as a result, high yields will be ensured.
How to care for this crop so that it produces a good harvest. First of all, it is very important to monitor the soil in which cherries grow; for this you need to follow a few simple rules, namely:
The soil around the cherry tree is weeded regularly as soon as weeds are noticed. Loosening is carried out immediately after weeding throughout summer period. To do this, you must first remove the mulch, water it abundantly, loosen the soil, and then mulch each tree again.
At the same time, make sure that there is no swamp under the cherry tree. The most favorable option would be to moisturize it no more than once a month. Otherwise, you may find that the crop is lost due to root rot.
Spraying with fertilizers is carried out several times a season, according to the following schedule:
To fertilize cherry bushes, choose organic matter. At the same time, every year the bush must be limed.
For novice gardeners, it would be useful to know about pruning this plant. This procedure is an excellent way to protect the bush not only from such negative factor, like drying out, but also remove next year good harvest. Pruning is carried out before buds open in the spring.
This manipulation includes the removal of all old branches that have stopped blooming and bearing fruit. As well as all other frozen and defective branches. It is worth noting that the older the tree gets, the more it is pruned every year. This procedure is necessary in order to get rid of old branches, replacing them with new branches that delight with lush flowers.
A procedure such as pruning is performed not only in spring, but also in autumn according to a similar pattern. The only difference autumn pruning– this also means removing all fallen leaves from the front garden, which are taken out of the territory and burned.
It is worth emphasizing that most gardeners still recommend giving preference to pruning in the spring and always every year.
So, it is necessary to ensure that the cherry front garden blooms well, while the diseased branches do not pull useful elements from the bushes, which, after pruning, are redirected to healthy branches.
Growing and caring for felt cherries is quite simple if you follow a few of the rules described above. And most importantly, such a crop is capable of producing good harvests every year.
Of the pests that attack felt cherries, the most dangerous are aphids, leaf rollers and plum moths.
In order to protect the cherry front garden, the following rules must be observed:
Above we looked at everything about such a culture as felt cherry care. It is worth noting that sometimes a novice gardener has a question: why does a cherry tree, which appears to be absolutely healthy, not bear fruit? In this situation, experienced gardeners notice that such a problem can arise if the shrub was planted incorrectly.
The fact is that compatibility plays a big role when planting this crop. Therefore, if the cherry tree does not bear fruit, then it is urgently necessary to plant a new seedling opposite such a shrub, which will further ensure compatibility of the crop and a generous harvest.
Gardening tips: if the cherry doesn’t bloomFor several decades now, in the middle zone, it has become the custom that cherries bear fruit very poorly.
There are good varieties good rules agricultural technology too - why is there no harvest?
Let’s immediately leave the talk about coccomycosis and moniliosis - diseases that are usually blamed for the disappearance of berries on cherry trees.
Firstly, the disease is a consequence of cherry suppression, and not the cause.
Therefore, I propose to discuss not ways to combat this disease, but how a cherry tree should grow so that it is not affected by diseases and so that it bears a lot of fruit.
A cherry from a root shoot or from a pit still grows into a full-fledged cherry.
If you have ever picked cherries in village orchards of the black earth belt (Voronezh, Tambov regions), where they grow without any care, reproduce by shoots and bear fruit beautifully every year, then you might have noticed that on all trees the berries have the same taste, and trees with unsuitable berries simply no. This is the case with the “folk” cherry. Scientists are doing even better with cherries.
Suffice it to say that in Moscow and St. Petersburg, at horticulture institutes, varietal demonstration trees (Rusinka, Fatezh, Kharitonovskaya and many others) produce 8-10 kilograms of berries at a young age, and annually.
As they say, the same tree makes both your jam and your liqueur. True, these varieties require grafting.
Let me explain: when we are dealing with cucumbers, asters or juniper, we are dealing with a whole plant, and a varietal cherry, or an apple tree, or a pear consists of a rootstock and a scion.
What is the difference?
Just imagine that a person has been transplanted with some kind of organ - how much more difficult is it for this organ to work than for the previous native one: it cannot be given the same loads, it requires a special diet, etc. Because otherwise rejection is possible. The connection between the tissues is incomplete, the metabolism goes back and forth with interference... Grafted plants are in exactly the same position: they cannot be grown “like everyone else,” they require the most optimal conditions.
Otherwise, if any unfavorable factor is introduced, the vaccine will be rejected.
We have little understanding of what, when fruit tree gets sick with black cancer, or its branches dry out, or a tinder fungus settles on it, or it freezes, or a disease like moniliosis is attached to it - all these are forms of vaccine rejection.
Fruit trees refuse to bear fruit, left to their own devices, that is, growing without care: they are busy surviving, where should they bear fruit...
1. SUNNY PLACE.
Grafted cherry trees, like all grafted plants in general, must be abundantly provided with carbohydrates, which are produced in the leaves during photosynthesis in direct sun.
For them you need to choose a place where straight lines Sun rays fall from early morning and last at least until the second half of the day, and even better - until the evening.
2. PRESENCE OF LIMESTONE IN THE SOIL.
It must be said that in the old days all the problems of this tree were solved with the help of manure.
Manure perfectly eliminates soil acidity and contains calcium, so with its constant application, cherries flourished throughout the middle zone. Today, in gardens where manure is applied, it still produces a harvest. If there is no manure, limestone flour can replace it in large quantities: it must be scattered annually far beyond the tree trunk circle in the doses indicated on the packaging (approximately 1 kg per 3 square meters). I would advise when planting seedlings to place them in landing hole large and small pieces of concrete. In this case, the hole does not need to be made deep; on the contrary, it is imperative to raise the root collar above the soil level by at least 15-20 cm, since cherries do not tolerate the root collar getting wet, much less its “freezing” into a puddle. Fertilizer for cherries should be as soft as possible and in small quantities; it is best to use humus obtained from decomposed grass. It is scattered on the surface of the soil, you can dig it shallowly - a third of the bayonet of a shovel. Mineral fertilizers valid only in small quantities and only those that do not acidify the soil.
3. PRESENCE OF FRIENDLY COMPANION PLANTS.
The following have a beneficial effect on cherries and significantly enhance them: jasmine (mock orange), antirrinum, gladioli, marigolds, primrose, rose, hosta, lupine, strawberries, raspberries, joshta (a hybrid of gooseberries and currants), turnips, peas - these plants I would I gave it a rating of 4+.
Barberries and dessert grapes deserve a rating of 5, and hazel grouse (bulbous) deserve a 5+.
Instead of grass and weeds, it is better to plant some of these plants in the near-trunk circle of a cherry tree.
In addition, it is quite possible to plant crops next to cherries that do not cause harm and do not bring noticeable benefits: columbine, lilac, clematis, garlic, onions, cucumbers, pumpkin, lettuce, corn, beets.
It is undesirable to place near cherries (ratings 2 and 3): all conifers, apple trees, honeysuckle, lilies, foxgloves, daffodils, tulips, pansies, irises, spirea, carrots, parsley, celery.
4. PRESENCE OF POLLINATOR.
Cherries are known for their self-sterility. Its fruits are borne from pollen of a different variety.
Sometimes the pollinator variety is not so easy to guess, so even if you grow 2-3 different varieties, they may not tie well. Find old cherry trees somewhere within the city (they were left on the site of abandoned orchards), dig up coppice trees near them, plant them next to your cherry trees to the side, 3-4 meters away, and wait for them to bloom. If you bring such trees from different places, there is a good chance that your varietal cherries will receive the pollinator they need. As for the crown, fruit growers are careful not to trim cherries, since the cuts do not overgrow well and can become infected. Young trees can be left alone with pruning shears for up to 15-20 years. In order for the crown to rejuvenate better, it will be necessary to remove old thickening branches from it from time to time; the covering of the cuts must always be thorough.
Consulted by Pavel Trannoy.
Miracle tree. Indeed, felt cherry is a miracle, a real find for gardeners. She doesn't take large space in the garden, it is especially unpretentious, and can delight you with a high harvest every year. During its flowering period, and in the Non-Black Earth Region it blooms in early May - earlier even than the ordinary cherry, it pleases the eye with its delicate flowers with a pink-white tint, and in the summer, when the plant begins to bear fruit, its branches are strewn with oval and round berries, pressed tightly against each other. According to the arrangement of the fruits, felt cherry is very similar to sea buckthorn. The berries contain a fairly large stone, which is why cherries are also called “drupes.”
The fruits of the felt cherry can be tasted already in the second year of its growth, however, with the condition that the yearling is grafted. Cherry blossoms profusely for five years in a row, after which the harvest declines sharply. But this can be avoided! You just need to trim off the old branches.
After six years of life, the plant must be rejuvenated. This will allow you to continue to get a good harvest. To carry out anti-aging pruning, it is necessary to remove one of the oldest branches, leaving the most developed one-year-old shoot. Over the course of a year, annual shoots should grow by 20-25 cm. If the growth is less than this figure, then to stimulate the growth of these shoots, pruning should be done, shortening several branches per year. Under this condition, the fruiting of the plant will not be reduced.
In addition to anti-aging pruning, do not forget about sanitary pruning, which consists in removing damaged or dried branches from the plant. You can prune to give the plant decorative form. This will add beauty to the bush, but will not affect the number of its fruits.
If you carefully monitor the plant, it will actively bear fruit for up to 15 years, after which it is best to plant new ones to replace the old bushes.
Felt cherry is susceptible to diseases such as moniliosis and verticillium wilt. These diseases affect young plant leaves, buds, flowers and even fruit branches. To save the plant from these insidious diseases, it is necessary to treat it with preparations containing copper. For example, treat with oxyhom or hom - copper oxychloride.
When planting felt cherries, you must remember that they do not like it when groundwater lies close to the surface. The delicate root system can become wet and dry out very quickly. But on dry, and even if fertile soil, felt cherries are very comfortable, as evidenced by abundant annual fruiting.
The felt cherry tolerates winter painlessly. It is winter-hardy and can withstand thirty-degree frosts.
Felt cherry is pollinated by bees and bumblebees. For cross-pollination, plants of two or more varieties can be planted on the site. For example, the varieties “Vostorg” and “Alice”, or “Natalie” and “Tsarevna” can be planted nearby. The varieties “Vostochnaya”, “Children’s”, “Beauty”, “Yubileinaya” and others are also very common.
The peculiarity of the felt cherry is that it can be grown from a seed. Moreover, the germination rate can be very high: out of 10, for example, seeds planted in the ground, 8-9 seedlings will sprout.
Here, of course, it is important to properly prepare the fruit seeds for future planting. To do this, the pit extracted from the cherry is dried a little in the shade. Then planting material sprinkle with damp sand and store in a cool place until sowing.
Sowing takes place at the end of October. The necessary, always dry place is selected, a bed is made, on which grooves are applied. The seeds are sown in them to a depth of 4-5 cm. They are sprinkled with sand on top and then covered with ordinary garden soil. Already in the spring, the seedlings will sprout vigorously.
If conditions are favorable for growth, then in the first year the felt cherry can grow up to half a meter. In the fall or spring of next year, the seedlings can be planted in specific areas. permanent places. A cherry obtained from a seed will bloom and produce a harvest in the third year of its development.
Candidate of Biological Sciences N. TSARENKO, Doctor of Biological Sciences V. TSARENKO (Far Eastern Experimental Station VNIIR named after N. I. Vavilov, Vladivostok).
Many gardeners have appreciated and successfully grown a distant relative of the common cherry - the felt cherry. Thanks to its annual abundant fruiting, winter hardiness, and ability to easily reproduce, it has become widespread both in Russia and in neighboring countries. Felt cherry has long been cultivated in Japan, China, and Korea. From these countries it was introduced to the northern part of the USA and Canada.
Felt cherry is extremely beautiful during flowering: the bush is completely covered with pinkish flowers and resembles a huge bouquet.
The branches of the felt cherry seem to be covered with fruits. In the photo - Urozhaynaya cherry variety.
Cherry variety Damanka. (Breeders G. Kazmin, V. Marusich.) In terms of taste - best variety felt cherries. Fruit weight - 3-3.8 g. Average yield from a bush - 8 kg.
Science and life // Illustrations
Science and life // Illustrations
Science and life // Illustrations
Felt cherry varieties early date maturation (July 15-25): Natalie (1), Children's (2), Fairytale (3), Fairy Tale (4).
The fruits of the Belaya felt cherry variety are distinguished by their rare white color.
Science and life // Illustrations
Varieties of felt cherries of medium ripening (July 16-26): Eastern Smuglyanka (above), Yubileinaya.
From the end of June to the end of July (depending on climatic conditions) in the gardens of our country, felt cherries begin to ripen. Feature this plant has felt-like pubescence varying degrees intensity, covering annual shoots, leaves, pedicels and even the skin of fruits.
Felt cherry (Cerasus tomentosa) belongs to the genus of small-fruited cherries (microcherries), Microcerasus Webb.emend.Spach - species M. tomentosa (Thunb). Despite the external similarity of the fruits, common cherries and felt cherries are genetically very distant from each other and cannot be crossed. Felt cherry is crossed with plum, peach, cherry plum and apricot.
Externally, the plant is a small shrub or tree 1-3 m high with a dense, wide-spreading crown, often oval, less often flattened. Perennial branches are gray-brown, rough, thick. The buds on them are located on short fruit twigs or bouquet branches. Annual shoots are greenish or greenish-brown. The buds on annual shoots are collected in threes together: fruit buds on the sides, vegetative buds in the middle. The lifespan of fruit formations is 3-4 years.
The leaves are small, with a wrinkled and corrugated surface. The flowers are pink, turning white towards the end of flowering, and bloom in the middle - end of May at the same time as the leaves. Flowering is abundant and long (10-15 days). Due to the short stalk, the flowers almost sit on the shoot, and during flowering the bush turns into a huge bouquet, attracting a lot of bees. Flowers tolerate frosts down to -3°C.
According to the timing of flowering of felt cherries, early-blooming, mid-blooming and late-blooming varieties were distinguished. In the area where return frosts are observed, it is not advisable to plant early-flowering varieties in the garden.
The fruits of the felt cherry are unusually polymorphic. Morphological characteristics are determined individual characteristics varieties and seedlings: fruit weight of seedlings ranges from 0.6 to 1.1 g; in the best, selected forms - from 1.2 to 2 g; in varieties - from 2 to 4.5 g. During dry periods, the fruits become smaller, but do not fall off.
The color of the fruits ranges from pink to almost black (as a rule, these are hybrids of felt cherries and sand cherries) and very rarely white. The pulp is juicy and tender. IN last years varieties have been created with dense, gristly pulp, like cherries. The taste is pleasant, from sour to sweet. The stone is small and does not separate from the pulp.
The average duration of cherry ripening is 10 days, but the fruits can remain on the branches for a long time.
Felt cherry helps increase appetite, improves digestion, it is consumed fresh, it makes delicious preserves, jams, jams, marshmallows, compote, wine, juice.
Fresh fruits contain: sugars - 4.1-9.1%, acids - 0.3-1.3%, dry matter - 8.0-15.2%, ascorbic acid - 11.3-32.6 mg/ 100 g. Felt cherry is rich in biologically active polyphenols that strengthen capillaries.
The average yield from one bush is 5.5-14 kg, depending on the variety and weather conditions. At good care in some years, amateur gardeners receive 15-20 kg or more per bush.
Seedlings begin to bear fruit very early, in the fourth year of life; seedlings from green cuttings - on the third; seedlings grafted with lignified cuttings - on the second. For better cross-pollination, several varieties should be planted in the garden. By selecting varieties of early, medium and late ripening, you can have fresh fruit for a month or more.
In years with long warm autumns, the growth of annual shoots of felt cherries is delayed and they do not have time to fully ripen; unripe parts die from freezing or winter drying, but this does not have a significant effect on the vegetation and productivity of the bush.
Felt cherry is one of the winter-hardy crops; tolerates temperatures down to -40°C. In severe winters, the core and cambium of perennial branches freeze. Such branches have to be deleted.
TIPS FOR GROWING AND CARE
The agricultural technology for growing felt cherries is similar to the agricultural technology for berry crops.
Plants are light-loving. In the shade or with dense plantings, the branches become very elongated, fruiting worsens, and the period of fruit ripening is extended.
Seedlings are planted at a distance of 1.5-2 m from one another. By 8-10 years, the crown of the bushes closes. Best time planting - early spring, before buds open. In autumn, bushes are not planted; they are dug in. Cherries prefer light, loamy, sandy, well-drained soils. Heavy, clay soils, low relief areas, peat bogs are unsuitable for cultivation. The plant does not tolerate prolonged waterlogging of the soil. Root system superficial, located in the soil horizon at a depth of 30-35 cm.
Felt cherry is characterized by intensive growth, begins to bear fruit early and ages quickly. When cutting shoots in the year of planting to 1/3-1/4 of the length, the main skeleton of the bush is formed in the seedling already in the second or third year. The early onset of fruiting causes active growth of branches in the first years, on which a large number of fruit buds are laid annually.
After flowering, fertilizers are applied along the edges of the tree trunk circles; 5-7 kg are required for each meter of area. organic fertilizers, 70 g phosphorus, 30 g nitrogen and 20 g potassium. The effectiveness of applied fertilizers is higher if you lim the soil once every five years: apply 200-300 g of lime fertilizer per square meter under digging.
In an adult felt cherry bush, no more than 10-12 strong shoots are left. Bushes are prone to excessive thickening, so to create optimal mode lighting, the center of the crown is thinned out annually. Annual shoots bearing the bulk of the crop are pruned by one third only if their length exceeds 60 cm. When fatty shoots appear inside the crown from dormant buds and the growth of shoots of skeletal branches stops, rejuvenating pruning is carried out. When carrying out anti-aging pruning, the center of the crown and peripheral skeletal shoots are lightened. Several side shoots are removed “on a ring”. As a result, annual shoots appear not far from the place of shortening. All parts of the old crown located above them are removed. The same pruning is used every four to five years to enhance growth, as well as to restore the crown of frozen bushes.
The main method of propagation of varietal felt cherries is green cuttings. Cuttings using lignified cuttings and layering are used much less frequently. They also use grafting: with an eye (budding) and with a cutting. However, in the European part of Russia, seedlings grown from green cuttings and layering may have their root collars buried to the height of the snow cover. In this case, it is recommended to plant seedlings in the garden, grafted above the snow cover or into the crown of the plant. The cuttings are grafted onto clonal rootstock VBA-1 or plum and apricot seedlings.
