Apricot vs Sour cherry

In Central Europe the crop is most often lost to spring frost: the tree flowers early, blossom and fruitlets are damaged at just 1 to 2 °C below zero, and hard frost returning after mild winter days also harms buds and shoots. The other major problem is apoplexy, when a branch or the whole tree dies suddenly in midsummer; it results from several pathogens combined with stress (frost, winter pruning, wounds, waterlogging) and cannot be cured with sprays. So never prune an apricot in winter: do it at the red-bud stage or after harvest in late summer, in dry weather, and seal the cuts. In cool, wet weather at flowering Monilia blossom blight kills flowers and shoots, so spray at the start and end of flowering and cut diseased shoots back to healthy wood. Gummosis, shot hole, leaf spot, plum pox virus (marked fruit and stones), peach twig borer and oriental fruit moth are also common. Overall a demanding tree: it needs regular preventive spraying and careful summer pruning, and can still be shorter-lived than other fruit trees.

In Central Europe the key problem of sour cherry is Monilia blossom and shoot blight: in a cool, rainy flowering period the blossoms turn brown, the twigs die back within days, and without control the crown becomes bare in a few years. Cut diseased parts back to healthy wood and spray susceptible varieties at flowering, or choose a more resistant variety. Cherry leaf spot (Blumeriella) can defoliate the tree by midsummer and weaken it. Cherry fruit fly (the European species and the later-flying eastern one) also infests sour cherries, and birds take part of the crop. It struggles on waterlogged, heavy and strongly acidic soils.