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Fruit tree growing guide
Cherry stones need three to four months of moist cold before they sprout, so sow them in autumn or chill them in the refrigerator. Seedlings make vigorous trees and good rootstocks, but they do not come true to the parent variety.
Use stones from fully ripe fruit. Rub off the flesh over a sieve in water and discard stones that float. Do not leave fruit to ferment: heat and long fermentation sharply reduce germination. Sow or stratify the stones right away, without drying them, if you can.
Not needed. The hard stone opens naturally during chilling; cracking it by force easily damages the kernel.
Essential. Mix the stones with one to three times their volume of damp (squeezed, not dripping) peat, coir or sand in a bag and keep at 2-5 °C (36-41 °F), for example in a refrigerator. Sweet cherry needs about 90-120 days, sour cherry 90-150 days. Check monthly and sow when the first stones split or show a root tip.
Not needed beyond moistening the stratification medium. Avoid keeping stones warm and moist for months: that harms cherry seed.
Cherry seed finishes its dormancy and often starts to sprout at 2-5 °C (36-41 °F); temperatures below 1.7 °C or above 8 °C chill less effectively. After chilling, keep the sown stones mild: standard seed tests use 18-22 °C (64-72 °F), and the 30/20 °C day/night test regime is considered too warm for Prunus seed.
About 2.5 cm (1 in) in pots. Nursery beds use 2.5-5 cm (1-2 in); in a study with mazzard cherry 1 cm (0.4 in) was used.
A deep pot or bed of well-drained, fertile soil mixed with grit or sand; cherries do not tolerate waterlogging.
Keep moist but never soggy. Mulch autumn-sown outdoor beds (for example with straw) so the surface does not dry or heave.
No light needed for the stone; move pots into full sun once the seedlings are up.
Most stones sprout at the end of 3-4 months of chilling or in early spring after autumn sowing. Sow sprouting stones before the roots grow long; long roots break easily. If roots appear too early, keep the bag near freezing.
In cold-winter areas, sow fresh stones in a nursery bed in early autumn so they after-ripen before the ground freezes; winter does the stratification for you. Protect the bed from mice and other rodents, which dig up the stones.
Give seedlings room: low seedbed density gives sturdier plants. Seedlings reach planting size in one to two years.
Plant out while dormant in a sunny, sheltered spot away from frost pockets. A seedling sweet cherry becomes a large tree, so allow around 6 m (20 ft), the spacing used for cherry orchards in India.
A cherry grown from a stone will differ from its parent and fruits later than a grafted tree. For named fruit, bud or graft a variety onto your seedling. In India rootstock seedlings are often raised from stones of late cultivars such as Misri, and mazzard (P. avium) and mahaleb are the standard rootstocks.
Sour cherries and many modern sweet cherries are self-fertile, but many sweet cherries need a partner variety that flowers at the same time. Self-fertile trees still crop better with a partner nearby.
Fertile, well-drained, slightly acidic soil (pH about 6.5-6.7) in full sun for sweet cherry; sour cherry tolerates part shade. Avoid sites with late frosts at flowering.
Stones for later use should be dried to about 9-11% moisture and kept sealed below freezing (-1 to -3 °C, 27-30 °F); they then stay viable for up to three years.
Give cherry seed three to four months of cold, moist stratification before spring sowing.
No. Seedlings vary and usually differ from the parent variety; they also grow larger and fruit later. Graft a named variety onto the seedling if you want known fruit.
About 90-120 days for sweet cherry and 90-150 days for sour cherry, in damp peat or sand at 2-5 °C. Sow when the stones crack or show a root tip.
Not reliably. Cherry needs about 1,000 hours below 7 °C each winter and is grown in India at about 1,500-2,700 m. In warm areas low-chill grafted varieties have the best chance.
Several years: seedlings take one to two years just to reach planting size, and seedling trees start fruiting later than grafted ones.
