Features Of Growing Felt Cherries

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Ando - a guest from China

Of the large number of cherry species, except for ordinary and steppe cherries, from which most varieties come, felt cherry is of great interest to gardeners and summer residents.

By origin, this is an East Asian species that has a wide distribution area - from the Pacific Ocean to the Himalayas.

The natural area of the felt cherry is located in Central China, from where, as a result of folk selection and gradual replanting of seeds, it penetrated into Korea, Japan, North America and the Far East of Russia.

It was first brought to the European part of our country by I. V. Michurin and by sowing seeds brought out a large-fruited form, which he called Ando - the Chinese name for felt cherry.

Tests of this type of cherry were carried out in different places: in central Russia, in the North-West (including the Leningrad region), in Siberia, in Altai, in other regions of the country.

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Far Eastern researchers consider the felt cherry as an exceptionally plastic culture. The famous scientist N. N. Tikhonov, in the process of testing and selecting the most winter-hardy and large-fruited forms of felt cherry, bred a number of varieties - Amurchanka, Pionerka, Ogonyok, Khabarovchanka and some others.

In recent years, as a result of breeding work in different regions, a number of varieties of felt cherries have been obtained, including Alice, Delight, Vostochnaya, Children's, Krasavitsa, Leto, Natalie, Osennyaya Virovskaya, Skazka, Smuglyanka Vostochnaya, Triana, Tsarevna, Yubileinaya and others.

Felt cherry differs sharply from common and steppe cherry. It grows as a shrub, 1.5-2.5 m in height, has obovate or oval wrinkled leaves, strongly pubescent below. The flowers are sessile, white or pink in color, the fruits are round, from light pink to dark red, with juicy pulp, sweet, slightly bland taste. They attach to the shoots with short (up to 0.5 cm) stalks, densely clinging to the branches. Fruit weight is from 1.5 g to 3-4 g. Not only leaves and fruits, but also shoots are pubescent of this cherry, in connection with which it received the name felt.

A valuable quality of this fruit crop is early maturity: its seedlings, obtained from seeds, begin to bear fruit from the third year of life. Felt cherry bears fruit on the growths of the previous year and bouquet twigs. Propagated by seeds (sowing seeds). This method of reproduction retains its qualities in the offspring quite well.

You can propagate it by vegetative green cuttings, horizontal layering and grafting on cherries with bessie, hardy and cherry plum. In addition, it is propagated by lignified cuttings.

In the conditions of the Leningrad region, the fruits ripen in the third decade of July, in cool summer - in the first decade of August.

Felt cherry is rather unpretentious, but grows best on light, well-drained soils. Excess moisture in the soil negatively affects the growth and fruiting, as well as the overwintering of plants. Waterlogging often leads to the death of plants due to podoprevanie bark at the base of the root collar. Frequent thaws in the winter-spring period also contribute to the heating of the bark.

Damping out the bark on the root collar and the adjacent part of the trunk is a dangerous type of damage. If damping out covers the trunk or all large branches around, then the above-ground part of the bush dies. Often fabrics are cut out only in spots. Then offspring appear on the surviving part of the root collar. Often, offspring appear in bundles - several dozen young shoots grow close; the bush in this case becomes one-sided. Such shoots are cut out again next winter or after 1-2 years. It is necessary to leave 2-3 of the most highly developed shoots, and cut the rest.

Damping off of the bark is not caused by fungal diseases, it is a type of winter damage caused by the fact that the felt cherry was formed in conditions of even winters with little snow, which determine the stability of winter dormancy until the onset of warm spring days.

Felt cherry is characterized by a fairly high winter hardiness and productivity. It freely tolerates frosts down to -40 ° C, growing in the harsh conditions of the Khabarovsk and Primorsky territories. Not only wood, but also flower buds, which bloom at a temperature of + 4 ° C, are winter hardy in felt cherry.

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Felt cherry agrotechnics

The agricultural technology of this cherry is similar to the agricultural technology of berry bushes, to which it is also close in terms of the longevity of the plantings. However, it should be borne in mind that felt cherry bushes damage hares and mice, which requires protective plantings and the use of poisoned baits for murine rodents. Additional measures are also necessary to protect the crop from birds (covering the bushes during the ripening period of berries with film, lutrasil, nets and other materials).

Felt cherries are planted every 1.5 m in a row, and with a two-row planting, the row spacing is left up to 2.5 m. The yield from a bush is on average 4 kg, but with good care you can get up to 7 kg.

When planting felt cherries, it must be borne in mind that, like any stone fruit crop, several (2-3) varieties or selected seed forms should be planted on the site for full pollination and fruit setting.

For fresh consumption, the fruits are removed fully ripe and immediately used, since they do not withstand any long-term storage and transportation. In addition, when precipitation falls in the last phase of ripening, their skin cracks. It should be noted that due to the short stalk, the collection of ripe fruits from the felt cherry is difficult. For processing, the fruits are harvested before full maturity, when they reach almost their maximum size and color.

Felt cherry processing products are of good quality: the seed in the fruit is small, takes only 8-13% of the total weight of the fruit, is easily separated from the pulp, so the fruit is convenient for processing.

Summarizing all of the above, it is necessary to advise gardeners who do not yet have felt cherry plants on their site to show interest in this fast-growing and fruitful crop, the fruits of which children love to feast on.

Other materials about felt cherry:

Vladimir Starostin. Felt cherry

Nikolay Khromov. Ando cherry - felt - varieties, advantages and agricultural technology

V. Stepanychev. Growing felt cherries