A. There might not be a lot of joy in continuing to analyze the reasons behind the drastic reduction in the cherry crop across many growing regions in comparison with an average crop.
Many of the pointers to a reduced crop were mentioned in my previous column. One to add to that list might be the effect of the number, quality and placement of bee hives during a pollination season that was cooler, windier, and lacking sunlight hours.
If each flower has two days to pollinate for fertilization to take place, and not many hours of bee flying time, then you can understand why this is an important issue.
Next season
So, for next season the thing that is becoming most obvious is the fruit-bud development that is now occurring in cherry trees.
A lack of crop and certain conditions mean that in some varieties, extra vegetative growth is taking place at the same time as fruit bud cluster development. Maintaining the correct balance between the two will influence the crop potential for next year’s harvest.
Should extra rainfall and higher than average soil moisture during the growing season push vegetative shoot growth to a prolifically high level, then some action to reduce this could assist.
Maintain the fruit:vegetative bud balance
Pruning new shoots in half will do two things: it will reduce leaf area and reduce fruit bud area for the following season—balancing out the crop potential.
There is also nature’s way: often following a light crop year, trees compensate by having the potential to produce a bumper crop. When this happens in most growing regions, cherries are often smaller, prices might be lower, and cherries can be less firm (because there is less calcium per cherry)—resulting in a fall in profitability.
Look and plan
This is why when harvest is over, look closely through the cherry blocks and decide what must be done; and plan a pruning regime for each variety.
There are variations in tree growth habit such as vertical or spreading, and although some cherry cultivars can be treated alike, recognizing these differences can help to even out annual crop potential.
