Topic: Cherries falling off.

[dtw]

My cherries are drying up and falling off,
is this due to lack of water or something else?

[Robert_Brenchley]

What size is the tree? Young trees sometimes start to form fruit, and then drop it.

[artichoke]

The "June drop" is a tree's way of thinning out its fruit so that the rest develops well. Is there any fruit left on your tree?

[tricia]

My morello cherry tree is doing the same. It flowered well and had lots of fruit swelling up till a week ago when most turned yellow with a reddish hue and are now dropping off. Very disappointed, but I think it may well be due to lack of water. The tree spent three years in a huge container until last Autumn when it was transferred to the ground.

I've also lost two of my blueberries - probably due to lack of water these past weeks.

Tricia

[lalilala]

my tree started to go down hill with the blossom. It was beautiful, then I think it was hit by the frost. Now I do have a few cherries, but the leaves seen to be curling and the blossom is brown and not falling off.

[Vinlander]

Yes, cherries need extra water when bearing a crop - unless your tree is in splendid isolation in rich moist soil.

Particularly important for cherries on a dwarfing rootstock.

Any kind of root competition can mean the root system will be water-limited - only able to support growth not fruiting (mine is on a boundary with a neighbour's collection of weed trees - ash, blackthorn, sycamore - pretty much a full house).

The ideal solution is a dripfeed - probably only a couple of litres an hour while the fruit is swelling and ripening - this is easily arranged by leaving your hose head trickling a drop or two a second right next to the tree.

Best done by tweaking the tap end - much safer in case the continuous pressure finds a weak hose connector and floods the area!

It's only for a week or so and you can shut it off at night.

I was told this by the RHS Fruit Group - it works like magic.

Cheers.

[dtw]

I bought it 10 years ago, and it's been producing fine until this year.
It is on dwarf rootstock, I think it's apple.
The soil is pretty poor.

We had some rain last night, so that may help.
I don't have an outside tap, so I can't do the drip thing, but I'll give it a water every night.
I thought it was ok, as the leaves are fine.

I think this is the first year I haven't been infested with blackfly.

[cleo]

It`s happening here as well I suspect cold nights when it was in blossom and then a drought didn`t help

[campanula]

what variety is it? some, such as Lapins/Cherokee are known to drop a lot of cherries, just like the June drop with apples. Stella and Sweetheart are also a bit 'droppy' but I wouldn't worry too much - as long as you can give it some extra water, there will still be plenty of cherries - unless you have piratical blackbirds, when you will have none without some defences.

[valmarg]

Yep, here too.  Not many cherries.  Ours is a Stella.

I think the problem is that towards the end of flowering we had a frost.  According to today's Telegraph weather watch May was the coldest for about 10 years.

I think the frost nipped the flowers in the bud. ;D ???

valmarg

[dtw]

Mine are Stella.

My cats keep the pesky birds away.

[dtw]

They are recovering now after all that rain we had, the fruits are shiny and some are ripening too. :)