Topic: Suckering cherry tree problems

[Tenuse]

Hi everybody,

I bought a maiden bare-root morello cherry tree early this year, it arrived through the post with a number of other fruit trees and bushes, and I planted them all up straight away in large pots.

Everything has thrived EXCEPT for the morello. This had a number of tiny buds on the stem as I expected, but they have not swelled and burst. I kept waiting but it is definitely not a well tree! In fact it looks dead!

On close inspection today I discovered that the rootstock it is grafted onto has suckered, I have three or four suckers growing up from the rootstock. Obviously this is not what I want! But before I ring the suppliers and ask them what to do, I want to make sure I have not done anything wrong. Did I plant the tree too deeply or too shallowly? (The graft union is about 6 inches above soil level). Is there anything I can do to save this tree - or is it a lost cause?

Please help - I want to have my facts right before I ring the company!

Cheers

Ten x

[john_miller]

Sounds like the scion/rootstock graft has come apart. Assuming that the tree is a maiden whip, i.e. it has had at least one growing season at the nursery where the scion will have grown out, then something happened over winter to cause this. Two guesses that spring to my mind would be that either the union iced up (given the depth you planted them that is unlikely) or that rough handling during lifting or transport caused the union cells to dissociate from one another.