Minnesota Tree Care Advisors

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Black cherry is a native to Minnesota. There are some larger specimens around, but you'll find that black cherry is a common small tree and shrub like part of the understory of hardwood forests. The Minnesota champion black cherry is 75 feet tall and has a canopy spread of 65 feet. The tree produces a good amount of fruit and is a good selection for wildlife plantings and for planting in parks and wild lands.

Medium to large height:		40-80'

Canopy spreads:		20-40', oval crown at maturity.

Drought Tolerance:		Intolerant

Shade Tolerance:		Intolerant

Soil pH Tolerance:		Intermediate in tolerance to high pH

Poor Soil Drainage:		Intolerant to flooding

Salt Tolerance:		Sensitive to salt spray and Tolerant of soil salts.

Black cherry is often seen as a small tree or shrub in the understory.

Black cherry has simple, alternate leaves that are typically narrow and lance shaped with a pointed or accuminate tip (2-6 inches long by 1.25 inches wide). For all of the cherries look to the petiole for two glands that are present there. This is a quick key that you are looking at a Prunus family member. Leaf margins are typically finely serrate and the upper leaf surface is shiny and fairly smooth. Turn the leaf over and check along the midrib for white to brown hairs along the lower 1/3 of the leaf.

Next look to the bark - on the young trees will be found a smooth medium to dark gray bark with many horizontal, whitish lenticels. Like chokecherry and wild plum the lenticels in the bark and small stature cause a good deal of mis-identification with buckthorn. On the older stems look for a small, dark, shiny plates of bark with unturned edges and hints of orange between the plates.

Black cherry's white flowers arrive early in the spring as the tree is leafing out and the flowers are produced along racemes at the branch tips. This is where the fruit will appear starting green and working through the reds to purple.

Black cherry is not a commonly planted landscape tree and is considered somewhat weedy. Disease problems such as black knot can render the tree rather unsightly for the landscape. Did you know: Black cherry is the tallest of the native cherries and the wood of black cherry is still highly sought. One of its most important properties is the stability of the wood, hardly shrinking or expanding with seasonal changes. Through the years black cherry has only been second to black walnut as a choice for fine cabinetry.

DISEASE		SYMPTOMS	MANAGEMENT
Bacterial spot and canker, Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae	Bateria	Angular or circular, red/brown lesions which drop out giving the leaf a tattered appearance. Occasionally cankers form on twigs and branches.	Seldom serious in landscape settings. Prune cankered wood during dormant period. Cleap up leaves and other debris in fall. CHEMICAL: Copper.
Black knot, Apiosporina morbosa	Fungi	Infection occurs in spring with olive-green, elongate swellings on branches visible the next spring. Galls turn woody and black later that second summer.	Remove infected branches 3-4ä below galls before budbreak. Remove nearby wild chokecherries. CHEMICAL: Apply lime sulfur as a dormant application following pruning or thiophanate-methyl when dormant, at pink bud, full bloom and 3 weeks later.
Brown rot, Monilinia fructicola	Fungi	Sudden browning and death of flowers. Cankers on small branches. Most noticeable is the browning and dropping of fruit, often with a gray/brown spore mass on the surface. Infected fruits shrivel (form mummies) and persist on the tree through winter.	Remove and destroy all mummified fruit. CHEMICAL: Benomyl, captan, chlorothalonil, ferbam, iprodione, myclobutanil (cherry only), propiconazole, thiophanate-methyl, vinclozolin, wettable sulfur. Begin as flower buds first open and continue as per label directions.
Canker, Valsa leucostoma, Leucostoma sp.	Fungi	First symptoms appear on young branches with brown drooping leaves. Elliptical cankers develop at the base of these branches and produce fruiting bodies that exude hairlike yellow tendrils in the spring. Cankers may become perennial.	Promote tree vigor and prevent mechanical damage. Remove and destroy infected branches. Only plant on good sites for Prunus spp. CHEMICAL: None.
Leaf spot, Blumeriella jaapii (formerly Coccomyces hiemalis)	Fungi	Dark purple spots initially on young leaves. Spots become red/brown and fall out of leaf or entire leaf may yellow and drop.	Remove and destroy infected plant material. Avoid wetting foliage. CHEMICAL: Captan, chlorothanonil, dodine, fenarimol, iprodione, myclobutanil (cherry only), propiconazole, sulfur, or thiophanate-methyl. Begin at petal fall.
Plum pockets and leaf curl, Taphrina communis	Fungi	Swollen, discolored, and distorted branches. Fruits enlarge greatly and are bladderlike or spongy and pale yellow/green in color.	Remove diseased fruit and twigs. CHEMICAL: Bordeaux mixture or lime sulfur during dormancy.
Western X disease, caused by a spiroplasma	Fungi	This organism is transmitted by leafhoppers. Early in the growing season light green to yellow foliage indicates the initial stages. New growth may be thicker. Leaves receiving full sunlight turn reddish brown. Proliferation of leaves or stems at the ends of new growth is common. Infected plants die after 3 years.	Rogue out infected plants. CHEMICAL: None.

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