Attempting to Graft onto a Cleveland Pear

Nice looking tree. No FB on my muli grafted pears onto CP for 9 years now. So go crazy grafting!

Tony

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@galindog1
You might want to read through this topic Top working Pears weather permitting and this one Favor for a friend - Top working Pears! and this one Callery pear as rootstock? prior to topworking over your Cleveland aka callery pear. Ornamental pears are about the best rootstock there is in many situations. Callery rootstocks can survive where other trees cannot!

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@clarkinks

Thanks for the topics to read, I’m learning a lot just reading these threads. Looks like I am going to be trying it this year.

I was reading some information from Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service which stated that for where I am in Texas (just north of Austin) the best varieties would be:

European hybrids: Ayers, Warren, LeConte, Magness, Maxine, Moonglow, Orient, and Kieffer.
Asian varieties: Shinseiki, Nijisseiki, Chojuro, Hosui, Shinko, and Shin Li

I would like to do a Korean Giant. So I am going to whittle down my list to probably three European and two Asian.

Here is the tree that I am going to be grafting onto.



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Sounds like a great plan! If you want pears fast I would stay away from warren , Ayers, magness etc.
In zone 8a many people plant pineapple and others. @coolmantoole,@fruitnut, @k8tpayaso, @wildscaper etc. can give you good suggestions on pear varieties for Austin.

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Good point! But those are some really good pears to have when they get around to fruiting. In the mean time, I grafted Kieffer, which are great for canning, and got them the next year. That’s what’s so great about grafting… you get lots of varieties that each have unique qualities to them.

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I agree Warren are top quality pears but you might not live long enough to eat them. Your grand children will love them! Hence the saying “ pears for your heirs”. Please don’t take that literally but they can take 15 years+ on callery according to some reports.

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LOL!.. “pears for your heirs.” I knew they took awhile, but 15+??? Yikes!!!

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I’m going to be pruning my pear which I think is Orient. The reason I say think is that it was tagged Kieffer but bore pears this year that were absolutely not Kieffer but looked like Orient and ripened the same time as Orient. It did bear pears for me on second year after purchase. If you want scions from it I will send some but if you want to hold out for a sure known variety I understand.

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I don’t think they would take that long in Texas but I waited 12 on a pear to produce here. Some pears like Harrow sweet you pick in a year. I would take @k8tpayaso offer.

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Yes 15+ lol it’s hard to believe but read this post Is it worth it to grow the Warren pear. I grafted to a 3 year old tree in 2016 so only 9-10 years to go for a decent crop.

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Well I’m glad I grafted them, but now I’m thinking that I grafted too many of them!

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And generally speaking, isn’t grafting supposed to speed up the process of getting fruit rather than simply waiting on it from planting a tree?

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Yes it does speed up the fruiting process. Let’s say you got a 20 year old callery and graft it to warren you would be eating pears in 3-5 years. Some trees are stubborn! I have a callery with Clara frijs, Ayers, and clapps favorite I grafted over 5+ years ago and I’m still waiting on fruit! The tree has a 4” trunk and is 10+ years old! Those 3 pears spurred up finally so I will get fruit anytime but remember that tree was 5+ years old when I grafted and 10 years old now ( actually 11th year). @Auburn did your Ayers ever fruit? Rootstock has a big influence on pears because I have another Ayers on 333 which bloomed the first year in the ground. Most people growing European pears on standard rootstock have no idea they are signing up for a 10-15 year wait depending on soil type, weather, and variety of scion and type of rootstock.

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I have picked a small amount of Ayers for about three years now but the limbs have never set a big crop. I was looking over an Ayers limb yesterday and it appears to be loaded with dormant fruit buds.

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Mine looks like it’s loaded with tiny fruit buds also. We will see what happens.

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I’m getting a lot of information for you guys, so thank you very much. I’ve decided that I am going to graft the Warren and Kieffer. I don’t plan on ever moving again, so I have time.

@k8tpayaso thank you for the offer, but I am going to hold out and see if I can get a confimed Kieffer. The Kieffer is one that my wife remembers as a child, so at a minimum I want to have that for her.

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Great topic!

I have had horrible results grafting onto Cleveland but I believe after I read all the above mentioned articles I will try again. Both times I’ve tried the scions have pushed leaves and even two to three inches of growth and then they wither and die!

I’ll definitely try again.

Some of my grafting attempts were Leona, Orient, Olton Broussard, Pineapple, Southern Bartlett and about eight others I can’t remember right now. Further information. The Cleveland is alive and well. Three people two of which are very experienced grafting pears made the grafts which were mostly cleft but some whip and tongue. Done after bud break and full leaf in active growth.

Thanks for the post.

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@Darkman
Florida can be hot so I would recommend you tbud if your first attempts fail like I did the pear trees in this tutorial T-budding tutorial - #41 by BobVance by @fruitnut . Once it gets hot traditional grafting will not work. At that link provided I attempted grafting using the tbud method 2 pear trees and both were successful. Another trick you can use is graft on a piece of rootstock first since it’s more compatible with callery than the other varities you mentioned. You might also be very interested in this post Interstem aka interstock Pear Grafting

Heat definitely pushes down the success rate, but it is very possible to cleft and bark graft during the summer. At least, I’ve had it work OK for apples, grapes, and plums, and even once in a while a peach (more rarely). I don’t remember if I’ve done it for pears, but from what I’ve seen, they are easier than most of the others (similar to apples).

On the other hand, I’ve had a lot of trouble with budding, though I’ve finally gotten to the point where I get some successes (similar to summer grafting). But others have very high rates of success. So if one way doesn’t work for you, trying more is a good idea.

One other thought- if you are getting initial growth, then death, you may want to make sure you have good cambium match-up between the scion and the host tree.

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I grew pears just north of Austin for several years. For me the best were Moonglo and Leconte. Orient was very productive but to me it has a kind of odd flavor profile and the others were better. Ayers doesn’t get enough chill and wont bear much at all. Warren is a dog also. I suspect Dabney would a great pear for that area, maybe one of the best if you can find one. Raintree has them I think. There are several out of the Houston area that look promising too. I had several of them planted in the later years but all were too young to give fruit yet when I moved. I doubt Korean Giant will get the chill it needs also but Chojuro and Hosui do well. As Marcus mentioned there may be two versions of pears called Leconte so it may be best to get scion from someone who has the good one. I grew Golden Boy for several years too and it bloomed pretty early which made me nervous but most years it would do fine I bet. I never got to try one as the Damn squirrels ate them all when it started fruiting.

Drew

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