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Hi have a large wild cherry plum and was considering grafting it over to cultivated varieties but was wondering about compatibility. Does anyone know if wild cherry plums are compatible with cultivated ones? Has anyone done this?
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Hi - I'm happy to try to help, but before I make any suggestions could I just confirm the exact tree we are discussing, is it definitely a Cherry, plum (Prunus cerasifera) and not any of wild cherry (Prunus avium), sour cherry (Prunus cerasus) or bird cherry (Prunus padus) ?
secondly when you say large, is it around 20' high or much bigger than that ?
Cheers, Nick -
it is prunus cerasifera around 17' with lots of suckers around the base. I planted it many years ago but don't care much for the fruit. I was wondering if commercial varieties are compatible with prunus cerasifera.Comment
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I don't think there's any way to get absolute certainty about compatibility short of trying it, but I think the chances of success on it working are pretty high. Perhaps the simplest way to test this would be to get a new shoot from an eating cherry in a month or so's time and try budding several buds from it on to the suckers.
As you probably know budding is the usual method with cherries and as you have a large tree if you want to do that, it will mean doing a lot of small branches - trying to cut it back and grafting it as you would be able to with an apple will almost certainly kill it.Comment
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