How to Plant Sweet Cherry Seeds So They Germinate and Survive

Sweet cherries are brightly colored, exquisite and crystal clear, and rich in nutrients, making them a fruit loved by many people. As a result, more and more people have been growing sweet cherries in recent years, so how do you plant sweet cherry seeds?

1. Sowing

After harvesting the sweet cherries, score the skin and flesh and take out the pits, then wash off the flesh attached to the outside of the pits with clean water, and afterward place them in a cool, shady spot to dry for 1-2 days before sowing. When sowing, plant the pits directly in a shallow pot, then transplant them into soft plastic pots.

Cherry seeds germinate easily, but their germination is uneven, and the seeds produced by some plants often lack viable embryos, so the germination rate is often below 30%. The seedling method reaches fruiting age relatively late, and the quality varies greatly among seedlings.

2. Fertilizing

During the flowering and fruiting period, cherries consume a large amount of nutrients and have relatively high nutritional requirements, so quick-acting fertilizer must be applied as a top dressing in a timely and sufficient amount to increase the fruit-setting rate, enlarge the fruit size, improve quality, and promote the growth of branches and leaves. The top dressing at this stage is mainly a nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium compound fertilizer. The time for applying base fertilizer in autumn is from mid-September to late October; the base fertilizer is mainly organic fertilizer, mixed with an appropriate amount of chemical fertilizer. Organic fertilizers include fully decomposed human excrement and urine, barnyard manure, soybean cake, chicken manure, pig manure, and so on.

3. Pest and Disease Management

The main pests and diseases include sweet cherry gummosis, bacterial shot hole disease, cherry leaf spot disease, aphids, red spider mites, mulberry white scale, and pear lace bug, among others. Before flowering in spring, spray once with 3-5 degrees Baume lime sulfur mixture. During the fruit growth period, use tebuconazole, carbendazim, thiophanate-methyl, and so on to control diseases. To control insect pests, choose imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, pyridaben, azocyclotin, and so on. From harvest through September, you can spray once every 10-15 days with a 1:2:200 Bordeaux mixture.

Planting sweet cherry seeds should be done according to the actual local conditions; some areas may not be suitable for the growth of sweet cherries.