Cherry Lyubskaya, description of the variety, photos and reviews, especially cultivation and care

Lyubskaya is the same cherry that will allow you to make many different preparations for the winter, as well as prepare delicious wines, liquors and tinctures. This is a technical grade with many benefits. Among them, absolute self-fertility and high productivity against the background of a compact crown that forms itself. Like any variety, Lyubskaya is not without flaws, it is important to consider them when growing.

History of Lyubskaya Cherries

The authorship of this ancient variety is attributed to the entire Russian people. No one knows the name of the creator of Lubskaya. But it was so widespread in the central part of Russia that in 1947 it was accepted for variety testing and entered into the State Register of selection achievements with a detailed description.

Today, the variety is maintained by the All-Russian Institute of Horticulture Selection and Technology, located in Moscow.

Lyubskaya is approved for cultivation in the European part of Russia. In the Urals and in the northern regions, this cherry greatly freezes in the winter.

Another name for the variety has taken root among the people - Lyubka.

Grade description

Lyubskaya grows with a bush up to 2.5–3 meters high. Crohn is rare, sprawling, sometimes round. Skeletal branches are located to the trunk at the right angle (45–90 °), there are no sharp departures. Annual shoots often hang down, from which the bush becomes drooping, weeping. The color of the bark is gray-brown.

A wonderful property of this cherry is early maturity. Planted with a 1-2-year-old seedling, it brings a crop already in the second or third year. At the same time, productivity is growing rapidly. The average yield of a young tree is 10-12 kg, the maximum 11-year-old - 54 kg.
Lyubskaya is highly self-fertile. Due to its decorative properties, this cherry is used for landscaping parks and squares, and it gives a full harvest even in single-grade neighborhoods. The variety does not need additional pollination, and itself is a good pollinator.

Lubskaya late cherries, berries ripen in late July - early August. They are large - 4-5 g each, the shape is almost round, if you do not notice a small cavity at the stalk, due to which the cherries look like blunt hearts. The skin is thin, but strong, dark red in color. The pulp is juicy, tender, sweet and sour. The taste is mediocre, therefore Lyubskaya is widely used for processing: making compotes, jams, marmalades, alcoholic drinks. The berries are dried and frozen.

Lyubskaya still has many features. Its berries can be recognized by a clearly distinguishable abdominal suture; it has a lighter shade. An easily detachable stone with a sharp apex is hidden inside the pulp. The fruits ripen at the same time and hang on branches for a long time, do not crumble, but only improve their qualities. The bush practically does not form shoots.

All the characteristics in the complex create the ideal technical cherry in the imagination. But there is one very big drawback. This old litter has a weak immunity to the terrible diseases of all stone fruits - moniliosis and coccomycosis. Without repeated spraying with modern fungicides, a crop cannot be obtained. And one more minus - in severe winters, the bark freezes. But this drawback is compensated by the fact that productivity is restored in one season, because Lyubskaya bears fruit at annual growths.

Video: cherries ripen on Lyubskaya

Growing Features

Due to the compact crown, Lyubskaya is suitable for intensive gardening. The variety is a godsend for owners of small plots who, despite such a problem, want to collect rich harvests of cherries. The sapling can be placed, retreating only 2–2.5 meters from buildings, fences, bushes and trees. Cherry will splendidly grow and bear fruit solo, without additional pollinating bushes in the neighborhood.

About pruning a bush

When growing Lyubskaya, you do not have to worry about forming a crown and spending a lot of time and energy uprooting the shoots. This is a typical bush cherry, it can be grown in 2-3 stems and annually carry out only sanitary pruning. The measure is to remove broken and dry branches.

I have a different kind of cherry, but for many years growing this crop, I was convinced that it is the most problem-free in formation, if you know one little secret. At first, I tried to form cherry bushes and trees according to recommendations from the Internet: after deciduous leaves or before buds opened, I chose the right ones and beautifully located skeletal branches, cut off too long, in my opinion, growths, cut out intersecting, growing inward crowns and hanging down branches. The result was deplorable: what remained of the tree in the spring was half non-viable. Most of the branches did not want to be covered with leaves.

To understand what the problem was, one video blogger helped. He voiced a thought that was valuable to me: on cherries, because it often gets sick, freezes, there are always a lot of dry branches. Thinning and shaping often boils down to simply removing these branches. And to understand the inexperienced gardener, which of them are alive, and which are dried up, it is possible only in the spring by waking up buds. It turns out that I cut good branches and left them dry. Now I always wait for spring and the appearance of sticky leaves and only then I go to my cherries with secateurs.

How to protect Lyubskaya from disease

To protect against fungal diseases, many fungicides are produced today: Bordeaux mixture, HOM, Skor. Judging by the reviews, the most popular and effective is Horus. It can be processed throughout the entire growing season, except for the phases of flowering and ripening of fruits. Spray the first time when signs of the disease appear, follow-up treatments with an interval of 14 days until complete cure. The last processing is done no later than 15 days before the harvest.

However, it is not necessary to wait for the onset of diseases, it is better to do preventive spraying on a green cone and again after 10-14 days. For the entire season, the disease-resistant cherry will have to be processed at least twice in the spring and the same after harvest.

Video: cherry coccomycosis, how to deal with bush baldness

This year my cherries were very sick with coccomycosis. In the spring, I treated them twice with the fungicides Skor and HOM. Despite this, in the midst of ripening, the leaves began to turn yellow and crumble. It is no longer possible to spray, then out of a desire to somehow help my cherries, I weed the weeds under them to the bare ground, cut out the lower branches and shoots, so that the bushes are well ventilated from below. Gathered yellow leaves and diseased berries. During these procedures, she discovered gum spotting on two trunks.

She treated gum therapy according to a technology combining scientific and popular advice: removed the resin, cleaned it to healthy wood with a teaspoon, washed it with a solution of copper sulfate. And then she began to conjure: several times a day she approached the diseased trunks and rubbed wounds with leaves of sorrel, then coltsfoot, or plantain. After 2-3 days, the gum stopped flowing, the wounds were healed, and the most amazing thing was that the leaves stopped turning yellow and crumble. Although almost all of them were stained with coccomycosis, they remained green and did not dry out anymore.

Cameo-detection is another problem that Lyubskaya owners may encounter. Its bark is prone to cracking even in the summer, not to mention the frost pits in the winter. To prevent the terrible consequences of wounds on the trunks, carefully and regularly inspect your cherry and provide timely assistance. And in order to protect against frost pits, whitewash trunks and skeletal branches in the fall to a height to which the hand reaches. White color will repel the sun's rays, which will prevent sharp jumps between the temperatures in the daytime in the sun and at night, the wood will not “play”, which means it will not crack.

Rest care

Like any other cherry, Lyubskaya needs:

• watering, especially during flowering and ovary growth, spend 30 liters per 1 m²;
• top dressings, add them annually: in the spring, nitrogen, during flowering - complex with trace elements, in the fall - phosphorus-potash;
• care for the near-stem circle, keep it free from weeds and loose, this will help mulch.

Gardeners reviews about Lyubskaya cherries

The most sick old varieties of folk selection: Vladimirovskaya, Lyubskaya, Shubinka, etc. They do not need to be bought and planted.

I planted Lyubsky, Vladimir was, and still Kharitonov’s.. they’ll winter well, Lyubskaya and Kharitonov’s are perfect form a crown I help only by breaking down into tiers, an excellent angle of departure of branches.. on the third ood all in colors!! Taste good.

Lubskaya, probably, is known to many summer residents. This variety is quite common in the suburbs. Berries ripen in the middle of summer. The variety is fruitful, the berries are large, dark. But winter hardiness is average, so trees can freeze.

Lyubskaya cherries have so many advantages that they eclipse rather serious disadvantages. Care of the crown is minimized, there is practically no overgrowth, pollinators are not needed. The tree is small but very productive. However, you can easily remain without a crop, if you do not pay attention to only one agricultural method - protection against diseases.