Bird cherry Sakhalin Black

Seedling from open pollination of common bird cherry from Sakhalin Island. Originator — Central Siberian Botanical Garden, SB RAS. Authors: V.S. Simagin, T.V. Skorokhod. Introduced into the State Register in 1995 for the West Siberian region.

Large tree, 6-7 m tall, with a medium-dense pyramidal crown, densely leafed. Bark is gray-brown, rough. Shoots are upward-directed, brown, thick, straight; buds are numerous, light-brown. Vegetative buds are large, pointed-oval; generative buds are oval-oval, pressed against the shoot. Leaf is elliptical, large, 8.5 x 4.5 cm, dark green, with anthocyanin-stained main vein, apex long-pointed, base broad-lobed, leaf margin toothed, no pubescence; leaf blade flat, slightly curved downward; glands 3-4, large, yellow, bean-shaped; petiole 1.5 cm long, thick, pigmented. Flowers in medium-dense racemes, 10-12 cm long, 30-35 per raceme, flower diameter 17 mm, corolla saucer-shaped, petals not fused, white, round-oval, stigma slightly higher than anthers, calyx wide-bowl-shaped, sepals smooth-edged; stamens about 20, 4 mm long, stigma 6 mm long. Flowering on one-year-old shoots.

Fruit mass 0.6-0.7 g, height 7.3 mm, width 7.5 mm, thickness 7.2 mm, round; cup wide, small; apex rounded; skin color black, solid; flesh green, with burgundy veins, tender, juice burgundy; pedicel 1.2 cm long, thin; seed egg-shaped, ribbed, mass 0.08 g, 13% of fruit mass, apex pointed, base rounded, detachment from flesh medium.

Fruits are single, attractive. Flesh is juicy. Taste is tart-sweet with astringency, good, score 4.3. Detachment from pedicel is easy. Suitability for mechanical harvesting is weak. Resistance to fruit cracking is medium. All-purpose variety. Fruits suitable for drying, compote and juice production. Fruits contain 34.7% dry matter, 10.2% sugars, 1.1% free acids, 9.9 mg/100g ascorbic acid.

Flowering is medium-early, in Novosibirsk at the end of 2nd to beginning of 3rd decade of May. Ripening is early and uniform — at the beginning of the 3rd decade of July. Enters fruiting on the 3rd-4th year after planting two-year-old saplings. Propagated by green cuttings and grafting. Lifespan of trunk is about 30 years. Self-incompatible, well-pollinated by other varieties of bird cherry selected at CSBG. Yield 12-20 kg per tree, at planting distance 5 x 3 m, yields 80-130 c/ha.

Tree, shoots and generative buds are highly resistant to winter frosts. Flowers are weakly resistant to spring frosts. Drought and heat resistance are medium. Resistance to coccomyces, clasterosporiosis and moniliosis is high. Resistance to bacterial, viral and mycoplasmal diseases not studied. Resistance to gummosis and chlorosis is medium. Slightly affected by aphids, leaf-feeding caterpillars and cherry sawfly, heavily affected by bird cherry sawfly and hawthorn.

Advantages of the variety: high winter hardiness, good taste and technological qualities of fruits, ease of propagation.

Disadvantages of the variety: small fruit mass, early flowering, periodic fruiting, damage by frost.