Morello

An acid cherry for cooking, self-fertile, and — unusually for fruit — genuinely productive on a north-facing wall. It fruits on last year's growth rather than on spurs, which is why acid cherries are pruned by replacement and sweet cherries are not.

A cultivar of Cherry. Everything on this page is about the cultivar; how to grow the species is on the plant page, and how big the tree gets is on the rootstock page.

Pollination

What this cultivar needs before it will set a crop.

Self-fertility: Self-fertile
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Acid cherry pollination
Checked 2026-08-13
Partner: No partner needed
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Acid cherry pollination
Checked 2026-08-13
Ploidy: unknown
Insufficient evidenceconfidence unknown
Not recorded; not needed for a self-fertile acid cherry.
No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Partners needed: none

What that means in practice

An acid cherry rather than a sweet one, and a different species from the sweet cherries above. It will not reliably cross-pollinate them.

Partners for Morello, from the 7 cherry cultivars GrowingHQ holds

Computed by the pollination engine from the flowering groups, ploidy and recorded pairings on each record — not a hand-written list. The scope is exactly what the heading says: these are the answers that exist in this catalogue, not the answers that exist.

No partner is required

Morello sets a crop on its own pollen. The table below is still computed, because a compatible neighbour does no harm and a grower planting two trees may want to know which pairs work.

Cultivar	Verdict	Why
Lapins	compatible	Lapins is self-fertile and pollinates every other sweet cherry — its pollen is rejected by none of the S-allele groups. It will set Morello even though that cultivar's own group is not recorded.
Summer Sun	compatible	Summer Sun is self-fertile and pollinates every other sweet cherry — its pollen is rejected by none of the S-allele groups. It will set Morello even though that cultivar's own group is not recorded.
Sunburst	compatible	Sunburst is self-fertile and pollinates every other sweet cherry — its pollen is rejected by none of the S-allele groups. It will set Morello even though that cultivar's own group is not recorded.

2 further cultivars return no verdict, because a flowering group or an incompatibility group is not recorded on one side. The engine reports that rather than assuming a value: Merton Glory, Napoleon.

The fruit

Season: Late
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — season
Checked 2026-08-13
Use: Cooking, Preserving
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — use
Checked 2026-08-13
Keeping: Eat within days
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — storage
Checked 2026-08-13

The plant

Vigour: Average vigour
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — vigour
Checked 2026-08-13
Habit: Spreading
source
Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — habit
Checked 2026-08-13
Cropping: Crops regularly
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry cultivars — cropping
Checked 2026-08-13
Fruits on: Wood made last year
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
Royal Horticultural Society: Acid cherry pruning
Checked 2026-08-13

Why that decides the pruning

Fruit forms on stems produced the previous season, which then decline. Pruning removes the oldest wood at the base each year to force new stems.

On each rootstock

The size of the tree comes from the rootstock. What the cultivar contributes is a direction, in words — GrowingHQ does not multiply the range by a vigour factor, because no source supports the multiplier and the resulting number would look far more precise than the inputs are.

Rootstock	Height	With this cultivar
Gisela 5	250–350 cm source Sourced guidancehigh confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry rootstocks Checked 2026-08-13	Morello is of average vigour, so the rootstock's range applies as published.
Colt	400–500 cm source Sourced guidancehigh confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Cherry rootstocks Checked 2026-08-13	Morello is of average vigour, so the rootstock's range applies as published.

Full profiles for each of these are on the rootstock page.

Cultivar record reviewed 2026-08-13.