It is impossible to imagine a modern garden without such a fruit tree as a cherry. During flowering, the tree is distinguished by its extraordinary beauty, the flowers have a pleasant aroma that spreads far beyond the garden. In the summer, cherries give a large crop of delicious and juicy berries. In recent years, the yield of old varieties has decreased significantly, so breeders are trying to create new - more promising. These include cherry "short story", with a description of the variety and reviews of which we will read in this article.
Selection history
The variety was created at the All-Russian Research Institute of Fruit Culture Selection in the city of Orel. For crossing, the following varieties were taken: Rossoshanskaya and Renaissance (created by crossing cherries and bird cherry). The authors of the “Novella” cherry breeders are A. A. Gulyaev, A. F. Kolesnikov, O. D. Golyaev, and E. N. Dzhigadlo. Since 2001, this variety has been included in the State Register, it is recommended for cultivation in the Central Black Earth Region.
Cherry "short story": variety description and characteristics
This cherry variety is high-yielding, winter-hardy, universal, has an average ripening period. Let's do a more detailed review of the description of the appearance of the plant.
Tree
The plant is medium-sized, reaches a height of not more than three meters. The crown is slightly elevated, sprawling has a rounded shape. The bark of the tree is brown; shoots are brown-brown.
The kidneys are small, up to 0.4 centimeters in size, slightly deviated, ovoid.
The leaves are dark green in color, matte, obovate in shape. The edges of the leaves are framed by small cloves. In the inflorescence there are four white flowers, are located freely. Cherries are tied on the branches of last year.
Fruit
According to the description of the “short story” cherry, the fruits have a dark brown color, even closer to black. Ripe berries are slightly larger than the average size and are about 2 centimeters in diameter, the weight of one is approximately 5 grams. Cherries are wide-rounded, slightly flattened.
The seeds in the berry are easily separated from the pulp. The bone mass is up to 5% of the berry mass. The peduncle has a length of 4 centimeters, cherries are easily separated from it. From the description of the “Novella” cherry variety, it is known that the berries have medium density, maroon color, sweet-sour taste. Juice made from berries is dark red. Fruits do not crack and are highly transportable.
Grade characteristics
Unpretentious in care cherry varieties "short story" is especially popular among gardeners. Let's get acquainted with the advantages and disadvantages of this variety.
Of the advantages, it can be noted:
- winter hardiness;
- productivity;
- disease resistance;
- high quality fruits;
- short stature;
- partial autonomy.
The disadvantage can be attributed to high demands on soil quality, low frost resistance of buds, which are at an average level.
Cherry "short story": pollinators
With a small number of pollinators or their absence, the self-fertile "Novella" variety is capable of producing stable yields. But nevertheless, it will not be amiss to plant near the most suitable pollinating varieties: cherries "chocolate", "Griot of Ostheim", "Vladimir". To attract bees for pollination, dilute honey in warm boiled water (in the proportion of a tablespoon of honey per liter of water) and spray flowers and buds with this solution.
Bloom
Closer to the second decade of May, cherry blossoms begin. The berries ripen evenly by mid-July, the young tree begins to bear fruit in the fourth year of life. Under favorable weather conditions, at least 15 kilograms of berries can be obtained from one tree. If agro-technical conditions are observed, cherry "short story" can become a long-liver.
The disadvantages include the low winter hardiness of flower buds: in those regions where spring frosts often occur, gardeners may be left without a crop. In order to postpone flowering, gardeners recommend covering the ground around the trunk circles with mulch and a layer of snow. In this case, the snow will melt longer, so the nutrients to the roots will begin to arrive later, which will delay the onset of flowering and will not subject the plant to frost.
Landing and care
As with many fruit crops, for the Novella cherries, a number of recommendations for care and planting should be followed. First of all, you should choose the right place for planting cherries. For this purpose it is necessary to choose a site well-lit by the sun and protected from the winds. For planting, it is unacceptable to choose plots of land with closely spaced groundwater. The land must be fertile and must be air and moisture permeable. Do not form densely planted stands. With frequent plantings and the absence of ventilation in the crown, increased humidity is created, which leads to the emergence and propagation of mushroom spores. It is enough to observe a distance between trees of 3-4 meters.
Landing pit
Before planting the "short story" cherry, you need to prepare a landing pit. If planting is planned in the spring, the place must be prepared in the fall. The size of the hole depends on the quality of the soil. If it is not very fertile, the pit should be larger. If the soil is clay, the size of the hole in diameter should be 1 meter, a depth of 60 centimeters, on sandy and loamy size in diameter - 0.8 and a depth of 0.5 meters. In order to improve fruiting, mineral and organic fertilizers must be added to the planting pit during planting. Mixed soil options:
- topsoil with humus or compost in a ratio of 1: 1;
- topsoil with sand and humus 0.5: 1: 0.5.
Chalk or limestone in the amount of 1 kilogram can be added to the soil prepared in this way.
It is recommended to use such mineral fertilizers:
- potassium sulfate;
- superphosphate;
- wood ash;
- potassium chloride.
They should be made when landing at the bottom of the prepared pit.
Landing rules
It should be remembered that seedlings having an open root system must be planted before the buds awaken, in early spring. Trees with closed roots - from April to June. Make sure that when planting the roots of the plants are located freely. Each young tree needs to be tied up. Recessed landing is not allowed. Having covered the seedlings with earth, they carefully trample it and water it abundantly. After drying of the top layer of the earth, loosening is carried out, and then mulch with dry soil.
In the first year, the "short story" cherry needs constant watering and cultivation. Experienced gardeners recommend buying annual seedlings with a height of not more than 70-80 centimeters, having a well-developed root system and matured wood. It should be noted: if the plant has green wood and a height of about one and a half meters, a large amount of nitrogen fertilizers was used during cultivation.
Pruning
The first pruning is carried out in the first year. They do it immediately after planting, before the buds open. It is in the first year that the plant experiences mineral and water starvation. The tree is formed by a stem of 25-40 centimeters. In the event that the planting material was armored, a central shoot and five side branches are left, they are shortened by a third. The main shoot is left 20 centimeters longer. If the tree is unbranched, it is cut 10 centimeters above the stem, while at least five developed buds should be left below the pruning site.
Adult Tree Care Rules
If during planting a seedling all necessary fertilizers were added to the hole, then for the next 3-4 years there is no need to feed cherries. Fertilizer should be applied once every three years, for this in April around the trunk the soil is mulched with rotted manure. Mineral fertilizers are scattered around the trunk circles and deepened into the ground. Every spring, it is recommended that you dig up the earth around the trunks, loosen it, and make it better with a pitchfork. According to the reviews, for “Novella” cherries, pruning must be done in a timely manner: non-compliance with this rule leads to a decrease in yield and various diseases. Be sure to remove the branches that grow inside the crown, when forming the crown should be left no more than 10 main branches.
Pests and diseases
Despite the fact that the "short story" cherry is quite resistant to diseases such as moniliosis and coccomycosis (sometimes called cherry plague), in rare cases this still happens. Signs of coccomycosis are spotting on tree leaves. Moniliosis can be detected in the presence of lifeless drooping tips of young shoots and brown leaves. Since the tree is affected locally, diseased branches must be cut and burned. Fallen leaves are considered one of the sources of the disease, so in the autumn they must be collected and also burned.
The main pest of this garden culture is a small beetle with a proboscis - cherry weevil. If one-sided berries were noticed on the cherry, it means that this pest settled on it. The beetle is very observant: noticing that a person is approaching, immediately falls into the grass. An insect winters in the ground, and with the advent of spring, it settles on trees, where it begins to feed on buds, flowers, buds, leaves and ovaries of plants. Weevil larvae gnaw bones and completely eat the core.
Methods of struggle:
- It is imperative to collect fallen berries from the ground, in which case the insect larvae will not be able to go into the ground.
- The bones from the cherries used by the weevil larvae must be burned.
- To lay the fabric at the bottom of the container during harvesting, leave the fruit in the container overnight, in the morning the larvae gathered on it should be destroyed.
- To reduce the population of insects, it is necessary to dig and loosen the soil of the tree trunk twice a year (in autumn and spring).
In addition to cherry weevil, other insects also harm trees:
- pipelines;
- shoot moth;
- cherry fly ;
- sawflies.
The fight against them is carried out using insecticides, which must be applied strictly according to the instructions.
Among gardeners there is an opinion that it is possible to purchase the highest quality "Novella" cherry seedlings - in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Orel.