Cherry

Sweet Cherry

Prune sweet cherry after harvestJul – Aug

After harvest, remove crossing or shaded limbs and keep the leader or scaffold structure manageable. Sweet cherries often heal best in warm dry weather and need light management to keep picking height reasonable.

⚠ Use clean sharp tools and avoid pruning during rain.

Tart Cherry

Prune tart cherry after harvestJul – Aug

After fruiting, remove dead or crowded wood and keep enough young lateral growth for next year's crop. Summer pruning after harvest lowers canker risk compared with wet dormant pruning in many regions.

⚠ Use clean sharp tools and avoid pruning during rain.

Sweet Cherry

Spotted wing drosophila: watch for the fruit turning colour

Begin weekly sprays as soon as the fruit starts to lose its green, rotating insecticide groups, and never stretch past 7 days. Pick promptly and completely; bag the culls. The female saws into sound ripening fruit and lays eggs under the skin, and a generation can finish in 8-14 days, so numbers escalate fast.

⚠ PHI IS CRITICAL: these sprays run into harvest. Cherry PHIs run 3 days (Exirel, Danitol) to 7 (Imidan) to 14 (Warrior, Mustang Max). Do not apply anything inside its PHI.

Tart Cherry

Spotted wing drosophila: watch for the fruit turning colour

The moment the fruit starts losing its green, begin weekly sprays and rotate insecticide groups. Fine netting plus prompt, complete picking cuts the spraying. Unlike ordinary fruit flies, the female SWD saws into sound, undamaged ripening fruit and lays eggs under the skin — so maggots grow inside fruit that looks perfect.

⚠ THIS IS THE PHI TRAP: SWD sprays run right into harvest. Cherry PHIs run from 3 days (Exirel, Danitol) to 7 (Imidan) to 14 (Warrior, Mustang Max). Read the label before every spray.

Sweet Cherry

Brown rot: blossom spray

Spray captan just before the first blossoms open and again at full bloom. No insecticide while it is in flower. Brown rot enters through the dying petals — the blossom spray is what prevents the fruit rot you would otherwise see in June.

⚠ Protect bees: do not use insecticide during bloom.

Sweet Cherry

Brown rot: pre-harvest sprays

Spray a fungicide 3 weeks before you expect to pick and again a week before harvest. If it keeps raining, add one or two more at 5-7 day intervals. Brown rot decays mature fruit very fast and spreads from spore masses on the rotted ones, so a crop can collapse in the fortnight before picking.

⚠ Check the pre-harvest interval on your own product label before any spray inside the harvest window.

Sweet Cherry

Cherry leaf spot: cover sprays

Start at petal fall with chlorothalonil, then keep the leaves covered with captan every 14 days through harvest. Leaf spot takes sweet cherry too, not just tart. Infection needs only about five hours of leaf wetness at 63-68F, so every spring rain infects unprotected new leaves.

⚠ Chlorothalonil must stop after shuck split on cherries. No combination product within 14 days of harvest.

Sweet Cherry

Cherry leaf spot: spray after you pick

Two weeks after picking, spray captan for leaf spot; in a wet year continue up to three weeks past harvest at 7-10 day intervals. Losing leaves early leaves the tree with poor stored reserves, so it enters winter unprepared and is prone to winter injury and dieback.

Tart Cherry

Cherry leaf spot: first spray at petal fall

As the petals drop and the first leaves unfold, spray chlorothalonil for leaf spot. Repeat at shuck split, about two weeks later. The fungus infects young leaves through their undersides during rain, and early lesions produce the spores that drive the whole season.

⚠ Chlorothalonil is barred on cherry after shuck split (about two weeks past petal fall) — switch to captan for later sprays.

Tart Cherry

Cherry leaf spot: cover sprays

Keep the leaves covered with captan every 14 days, about five sprays, carrying through to harvest. Leaf spot needs only about five hours of leaf wetness at 63-68F to infect, so every spring rain finds unprotected new leaves.

⚠ Do not tank-mix captan with oil. Combination products cap at five applications a year and none within 14 days of harvest.

Tart Cherry

Cherry leaf spot: spray AFTER you pick (the one everyone skips)

Two weeks after harvest, spray captan again. In a wet year keep protecting the leaves up to three weeks past picking, every 7-10 days. The tree must hold its leaves into September to build the reserves that set next year's crop and harden it for winter. Defoliated early, it goes into winter starved and comes out with dieback.

⚠ Chlorothalonil is allowed again after harvest — this is the one late window where the label permits it.

Tart Cherry

Brown rot: blossom spray

Spray captan just before the first blossoms open and again at full bloom. Add no insecticide while the tree is flowering. Brown rot enters through the dying petals first, then moves into the fruit later in the season.

⚠ Protect bees: do not use insecticide during bloom.

Tart Cherry

Brown rot: pre-harvest sprays

Spray a fungicide about 3 weeks before you expect to pick, and again a week before harvest. Brown rot moves fastest as sugars rise near maturity, and each rotted cherry becomes a spore source for the ones touching it.

⚠ Check the pre-harvest interval on your own product label before any spray inside the harvest window — PHIs differ by formulation.

Sweet Cherry

Net the tree before the fruit colours — or lose the crop in a day

Get netting over the tree as the fruit begins to ripen, before it colours. Noisemakers, scarecrows, pie plates and plastic snakes do little. Sweet cherry is a favourite of several bird species, and a flock can take the entire crop in a single day once it ripens.

Tart Cherry

Net the tree before the fruit colours

Get netting on as the fruit begins to ripen. Noisemakers, scarecrows, pie plates and plastic snakes do not work. Birds can take a ripening cherry crop faster than any other loss on the tree; a physical barrier is the only thing that reliably stops them.