How Many Years Does a Cherry Tree Take to Bear Fruit? A Detailed Explanation of the Time to Fruiting
How many years does a cherry tree need to be planted before it bears fruit? There is a saying that “cherries are tasty but the tree is hard to grow”; in fact, it is not the tree that is hard to grow, but rather the fruit that is hard to pick. The cherry tree is quite adaptable, and it can grow in almost any kind of soil. So, how many years does it take for a cherry tree to bear fruit when planted for the first time? What is cherry tree management like?
How many years does a cherry tree take to bear fruit?
Sweet cherries generally take three years from planting to their first fruiting, and if grafting is used this cycle is greatly shortened; the specific time depends on the choice of rootstock.
Points to note when planting cherry trees
1. Trial planting first, then development
Sweet cherries like warmth and are not tolerant of cold, drought or waterlogging, and they fear strong winds; they are suitable for cultivation in areas with an annual average temperature of 10°C~15°C. Practice has shown that when the annual average temperature is above 15°C, sweet cherries often produce many flowers but set little fruit. To introduce and develop sweet cherries, you must not only look at local factors such as annual average temperature, rainfall, sunshine and frost-free period, but also carefully analyse the local microclimate characteristics: plant on a trial basis first, then develop.
2. Develop firm-fleshed varieties that store and transport well
At present, there are only a dozen or so excellent sweet cherry varieties verified through cultivation, and each variety has certain shortcomings. For example, Hongdeng, bred in our country, has large fruit, brilliant colour, juicy sweet flesh, and high and stable yields, but it enters full bearing late, its fruit skin is thin and its flesh soft, so it is not suitable for processing, storage or transport and is only suited to small-area planting. In future cherry cultivation, varieties should be chosen that have a beautiful appearance, firm flesh, good quality, slight cracking, good storage and transport tolerance, and suitability for both fresh eating and processing.
3. Focus on preventing crown gall disease and viral diseases
Choosing excellent rootstocks suited to local cultivation is the key to successful sweet cherry cultivation. The most important thing is to see whether the rootstock is resistant to crown gall disease and whether it carries viral diseases. In old sweet cherry production areas, sweet cherry development must not use replanted land, and even less should sweet cherry seedlings be raised on replanted land; in newly developed sweet cherry production areas, on the premise of confirmed good varieties and good rootstocks, the barriers of crown gall disease and viral diseases must be strictly controlled.
4. Both pollination and fruit thinning are needed
Most sweet cherry varieties are self-unfruitful or have a very low fruit-setting rate, so cross-pollination is needed. Some sweet cherry orchards that fail to produce good yields year after year, or that bear very little fruit at the appropriate age, are not affected by freezing damage; the main reason is unreasonable arrangement of pollinizer trees, non-overlapping bloom periods and poor pollination. Van and Lapins are both very ideal pollinizer varieties. Also, weaker fruiting branches should be thinned out in good time, smaller flowers removed, and small fruit with irregular shape or improper position and deformed fruit thinned out; each strong fruiting branch should preferably keep 2~3 fruit.