Hi John,

Thanks for your reply, great info.

My wife and I have 20ha of cherries in Young NSW Australia elevation 580m latitude 34.4236°

I have been farming chemical free for the past 3yrs, relying of nutritional and biological farming practices. And have noticed that my trees have leafed up quicker then a lot of other growers in the past and this year even more so. My other varieties are starting to flower and seem to be going the same way.

In the past I was happy to get leaves to grow quickly but worried about leaves competing for calcium and other nutrients in the fruit. Another concern is hormone balance, reproductive vs vegative growth.

The Royals have just about set every flower. But I have had problems setting fruit on Samba, Black Star and Benton in the past.

I did wonder about nitrogen but I use very little nitrogen however I did apply 25kg/ha of lo-bi urea in the fall. No other vegetative nutrients have been applied recently.

I believe the leaves are looking good at this stage, they are shiny, round, nicely serrated, good zinc and still sizing and and colouring.

I hope this helps to put into context.

Kind regards

Chris Hall