Flowering Dwarf Cherry Pests

Wildlife Pests

• Cherry trees are more attractive to birds than trees that don't bear fruit, as cherry trees offer them both shelter and a food source. Birds do not discriminate between wild cherries and the fruits homeowners raise for personal consumption. Growers may have a healthy, nearly ripe crop one day and bare trees the next. Birds are less attracted to sour cherries, but will still consume the majority of the crop. Netting is the most effective means of protecting dwarf cherry fruits from birds, as it puts a barrier between birds and your fruits. The smaller size of dwarf trees makes them easier to cover. Run the netting all the way to the ground or secure it around the trunk to ensure that the birds cannot gain access from beneath the nets.

Folage Damaging Pests

• Cherry slugs, also known as pear sawflies or pear slugs, can fully devour leaf tissue, leaving behind only veins. Their feeding can also produce a “window” effect, whereby they reduce leaf tissue to a translucent membrane between veins. These slugs are immature sawflies. Insecticide treatments often require a waiting period if you want to use the cherries, but in most cases, a soap and water spray treatment is effective, and the damage caused by cherry slugs is largely cosmetic.

  Black cherry aphids, which usually appear during the spring, feed on sap from the leaves of dwarf cherry trees, causing distorted leaves. Large numbers of aphids can stunt young trees. Many beneficial insects can help control aphid populations, including lacewings and lady beetles. Black cherry aphids live on weeds from the mustard family, so weed control year-round will help reduce aphid populations.

Trunk Damaging Pests

• If you also grow apples, pears or plums near your dwarf cherry trees, you may need to treat your other trees to bring pest infestations under control, as fruit tree pests can affect several types of trees. One example of this is the American plum borer. The larvae of this moth bores into the wood of the tree. The damage caused by this pest is particularly harmful to cherries grafted onto dwarf root stock, as the pests target the graft unions in young trees. These borers also cause damage that leave the trees' structure weakened.

Invasive Pests

• The spotted wing drosophila attacks cherry, berry and soft-fleshed fruit crops, but where other fruit flies are attracted to decomposing fruit, this fly targets healthy, undamaged fruit, according to the University of California, Davis. Females lay their eggs within cherries, often leading to several maggots inside a single fruit and damage that can go unnoticed until the fruit is collected for use. Growers in coastal states affected by the fly can use netting to exclude both the fruit flies and birds by covering their trees with a 0.98 mm mesh before their fruits begin to ripen.