Cherry tree - Fruit or else!

[Ger-annie-um]

We have a lovely Stella cherry Tree, very healthy, no overcrowded branches, blossoms beautifully every year, fruit forms it begins to swell, we get all excited and then................ it shrivels up and drops off. I would estimate that in the 6 years it's been in the ground we've probably had about 20 edible cherries. No obvious signs of disease other than some leaves curl up and we see some aphis and ant activity. It's always well watered and we put a grease band around the trunk every year - god knows how the ants vault that. I've warned OH that this year is it's final chance. The Victoria plum which is less than 15 ft from it performs wonderfully well and is well worth keeping.

Help, he loves his cherries but enough is enough

[FB.]

It sounds as if the tree is not being pollinated. Poorly pollinated fruit will drop prematurely (although some fruit varieties are known for a significant fruit drop in early summer).

Supposedly Stella is self-fertile, but perhaps it is not Stella (a mistake at the nursery?), or perhaps there are not enough pollinating insects around when it blossoms. Insects dislike cool/dull/windy/wet conditions.

Another possibility is that young trees will drop their fruit to concentrate on growing. If the tree is growing well, perhaps you are over-feeding and over-watering, which is discouraging it from fruiting properly. If the soil is now heavily fertilised, it may take a few years for any tree in that spot to start to fruit. A stressed tree fruits heavily the following season. A well-fed tree grows at the expense of fruit. A tree is always looking to get as big as possible before fruiting - to prevent being out-competed.

Perhaps it is on a vigorous rootstock (again; perhaps a nursery mistake).
Vigorous rootstocks are slower to come into full cropping.

[Ger-annie-um]

Thanks for that.....if it is poor pollination is there anything we can do to improve things?

[FB.]

Thanks for that.....if it is poor pollination is there anything we can do to improve things?

Stella is supposed to be self-fertile.
Poor pollination would therefore be due to lack of pollinating insects.
Is your tree in a very exposed (or very shady) position that deters insects?
Are you spraying the tree with chemicals that are killing the pollinating insects?

Try hand-pollinating with a small soft paintbrush or a feather.

Try planting some crocus (the more the better - bees love a huge mass of crocus flowers), to get the bees routinely coming to your garden just before and around the time that your cherry flowers.

[Ger-annie-um]

The tree is in a reasonably open position but does have a tall hedge about 3ft away on two sides..........as does the plum tree on the other side but this has no problems. We haven't used any chemicals on it other than a grease band so it can't be that. How do we hand pollinate?