Sweet cherries in the Urals: planting and care, choosing the best varieties, growing rules

Recommended varieties for the Urals

When choosing among a wide variety of good and best varieties for planting in the Urals, you should give preference to specimens from the rating of the most popular species. Cultivating proven varieties will help you avoid common mistakes and get a good harvest.

Early ripening

Early ripening cherries begin to ripen in early to mid-June. Early crop varieties for the Urals include:

Here we go. The variety is characterized by a spreading pyramidal crown and large inflorescences. The berries are medium-sized, dark red, heart-shaped.
Leningradskaya black. A tall variety with small but juicy fruits. The shape of the berries is oblate-ovoid, the taste contains notes of honey.
Mayskaya. Vigorous cherry, resistant to many infections and frost. The fruits are small, round, with dense and sweetish pulp.

Mid-season crops

The ripening period for mid-season varieties occurs in mid-summer. Among these varieties are common:

Annushka. Vigorous trees with a spreading crown and fruits weighing up to 10 g. The berries have juicy pulp, a pronounced aroma and a sweet taste.
Adeline. A productive variety that produces medium-sized trees. The fruits are bright red in color, weigh up to 6 g and have elastic flesh.
Teremoshka. Self-sterile variety requiring pollination from other crops. Trees with a spherical crown are resistant to disease and bear fruit with a honey flavor.

Late varieties

Late-ripening varieties are grown in rare cases in the Urals due to harsh climatic conditions. When planting late varieties, complex care and protection from frost are required. The varieties of late cherries that are suitable for cultivation in the Urals include:

Michurinskaya late. Fruits weighing 6-7 g ripen at the end of August. The berries have a round shape, deep red skin and juicy pulp with a sweet taste.
Bryansk pink. Trees of this variety have a dense crown and medium-sized fruits with pinkish skin. The pulp of the berries is dense, yellowish in color. The crop tolerates long-term storage and transportation.

Winter-hardy tree varieties

The winter hardiness indicator is one of the important criteria for choosing a cherry variety. The most resistant varieties include:

The first swallow. The heart-shaped berries weigh more than 5 g and can withstand sudden drops in temperature. The skin of the fruit is shiny, the skin is dense.
Firstborn. A universal high-yielding variety of medium-late ripening. The fruits ripen in July and reach a weight of 7 g. The harvest has juicy pulp and a sweet taste.

Advantages and disadvantages

The main advantage of any type of cherry for the Urals zone is considered to be frost resistance. Trees are immune to both cold weather and any fungal infections, which cannot be said about the close relative of the sweet cherry - the cherry.

Fundamentally! It is recommended to help cherries in the fight against fungal diseases or pests - to increase immunity with the help of special drugs. Spraying with insecticides or fungicides will help. To increase immunity, immunomodulators, adaptogens, such as zircon, epin and almost all others are recommended.

The berries are quite large in size, on average they reach 4-5 g. There are some differences in taste. Ovstuzhenka is in the lead, others are slightly behind in sweetness. Fatezh is at the end of the list, since the fruits are slightly dry and the taste is mediocre. But with all this, the variety is distinguished by its highest yield - on par with Ovstuzhenkoy.

Among the disadvantages, only the highest requirements for the landing site and care conditions can be noted. Feeding, a huge amount of water - all this is needed for the tree to take root and enjoy its large harvests.

The Urals zone, like Siberia, is an area where frosts rage in winter, and temperature changes are frequent in autumn and spring, so scientists have developed special varieties of cherries that are resistant to frost and pests. All this goes hand in hand with the highest taste properties, which makes cherries a welcome guest in the abode of every self-respecting gardener. With painstaking care, in a couple of years the tree will delight its owner with a bountiful harvest.

Landing Features

When planting cherries in the Urals, it is necessary to perform a number of standard procedures and take into account the climatic features of the region. To avoid difficulties during cultivation and get a good harvest, you need to determine the appropriate time for planting, choose a location on the site and prepare the soil.

Recommended timing

Due to climatic conditions in the Urals, cherries are planted exclusively in the spring. It is necessary to wait until the snow cover melts and the likelihood of return frosts disappears, and then transfer the seedling to a permanent place of growth.

In the case of autumn planting, the seedlings will not have time to take root and adapt to new conditions, and as a result they will freeze out with the onset of winter.

The optimal place for cherries

The place in the garden plot for placing cherry seedlings must meet a number of requirements. In particular:

sunlight throughout the day;
lack of through blowing and protection from strong wind gusts;
low level of groundwater (not higher than 2.5 m).

Preparing soil mixture for seedlings

Cherry loves soil with neutral acidity, so liming should be done before planting. On light sandy loam soil, use 300-400 g of lime per square, and on heavy loamy soil - 600-800 g. Organic fertilizers (wood ash, rotted manure, compost) are added to the soil mixture.

Tree planting technology

It is recommended to transfer cherry seedlings to a permanent place using standard technology. To disembark you need:

Dig a planting hole in a suitable area. The dimensions of the hole for seedlings are about 70 x 90 cm.
The soil is mixed with organic fertilizer and a small hill is poured into the center.
The roots of the seedling are soaked in a growth stimulator and the plant is placed in the central part of the hole.
Sprinkle the seedlings with soil, compact the soil and water it abundantly.

Selection of seedlings

When purchasing a cherry seedling, you should pay attention to several characteristics:

External signs of seedlings. The tree should have a strong branch that outweighs the side branches. Specimens with a forked trunk are not suitable - they may break under the weight of the berries in the future. The seedling must have a well-developed root system. There should be no broken or damaged roots. The seedling selected for planting must be dormant.
Graft. The grafting must be visible on the seedling, which guarantees the quality of the planting material. The quality of such seedlings is much higher than seedlings grown from seeds.
Age. Do not buy seedlings older than three years.
Rating. Varieties are selected that are zoned for a given region, that is, those that performed better than others in a given climatic zone.

We recommend reading an article that will help you choose the most popular varieties of cherries.

Seedlings are purchased from licensed nurseries or specialized retail outlets. Ideally, a seedling should have a variety passport, which usually indicates how to properly plant the seedling and how to care for it.

We organize “Ural” cherry care

Caring for cherry trees when planted in the Urals requires an integrated approach. Depending on weather and climatic conditions, the frequency of watering, the use of fertilizers, crown formation and preventive treatments change. Taking into account the specifics of the region and carrying out appropriate care, it will be possible to ensure active growth and development of plantings.

How often to water

Cherry is one of the moisture-loving berry crops and requires regular, abundant watering. The soil should be moistened as it dries, periodically checking the condition of the soil. During the period of intensive ripening of berries, waterlogging can lead to cracking of the crop, and a lack of liquid in the soil leads to drying of the roots. Each irrigation is accompanied by loosening the soil so that water penetrates to the roots lying on the lower layers of the earth. Loosening is carried out only in the absence of a layer of mulch.

What to feed

Since cherries actively grow green mass, a minimum amount of nitrogen should be used when fertilizing the crop. Nitrogen fertilizers can be applied to the soil only in early spring and in small quantities. Nitrogen fertilizers stimulate the growth of shoots and inhibit their lignification.

Tree trunk care

Immediately after spring planting or before autumn frosts, the area around the tree trunk is covered with protective mulch. The mulching process simultaneously performs several functions, including the following:

insulation of roots by preventing soil freezing;
reflection of the sun's rays;
retaining moisture in the soil, preventing rapid evaporation when exposed to the sun;
combating the germination of weeds that do not break through the mulch;
ensuring soil looseness.

Formative pruning

Tree formation can be done in spring or early autumn. Pruning is carried out to limit the growth of plantings in height so that branches can be bent down or covered for the winter. To slow down growth, remove the central conductor, thickened foliage and damaged parts of trees.

Pruning also helps to form a large number of new branches on which inflorescences grow. In addition, compact trees begin to bear fruit earlier.

Preventative treatments

Cherries are rarely affected by diseases and pests, but an unfavorable climate can increase the risk of illnesses. It is recommended to constantly inspect the trees and, when the first signs of damage are detected, spray with fungicidal and insecticidal preparations.

For preventive purposes, treatments with immunomodulators and adaptogens can be performed. Such spraying is carried out in late August - early September. Prevention helps the berry crop easily endure the cold winter in the Urals.

Getting ready for the Ural frosts

You can start preparing for cold weather in early August. First of all, you should take care of the aging of the wood. If shoot growth does not stop in the first ten days of August, it is necessary to remove the tops of the shoots by pinching. This technique accelerates the aging of wood and improves the frost resistance of plantings.

To speed up the fall of leaves, it is recommended to spray the trees with a urea solution. The treatment will speed up the formation of flower buds and prepare the wood for frost. If during wintering the tree bark begins to crack due to strong temperature changes, whitewash the tree trunk.

Young seedlings are protected for the winter with covering material - burlap, opaque polyethylene fabric or thick fabric . To fix the material, supports are used, which are placed in the ground next to the plantings.

Errors during cultivation

When cultivating cherries in the Urals, many novice gardeners make standard mistakes. These include:

Wrong choice of predecessors. Suitable predecessor crops for cherries include pears, apples, carrots, peas and beans. Unsuitable predecessors are grains, cabbage, strawberries, onions, cherries, plums.
Violation of the rules of care. In harsh climatic conditions, it is important not to neglect agricultural technology and take a comprehensive approach to tree care.
Infertile soil. Choosing the wrong location leads to the death of plants and a reduction in the amount of harvest.
Planting inappropriate varieties. For planting in the Urals, you need to choose only those varieties that are highly resistant to cold snaps and undergo sudden temperature changes.

If agricultural techniques are followed, it will be possible to grow cherries even in the difficult climatic conditions of the Urals.

Growing cherries in Siberia and the Urals in creeping form

The main idea of this form of cultivation is the ability to cover the tree for the winter. It all starts with planting, and the seedling is planted not vertically, but at an angle of 45°. A tree tied to a support is held in this position until autumn, and then it is completely bent to the ground and covered first with covering material, and then with sawdust and snow. In the spring, the cover is removed and the tree is again tied to the support.

This method is used when growing cherries on dwarf rootstocks, for example, steppe cherries. It is very convenient to work with such bushes about a meter high.