I have a 4 yr old asian pear on Callery and am very disappointed in its performance at least in my environment. It lacks vigor and tends to defoliate during the peak of summer. Its getting the axe this year and I planted a replacement next to it on Betulaefolia. OHF rootstocks perform just fine here.
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Just another option here. Use an inter-stem that is compatible with Callery and Asian pears. I have a great looking Asian pear on Callery root. It has an Ayers inter-stem. This method might not be worth the extra effort with a small tree but if you already have a Callery pear that is established the inter-stem may be a viable option. Bill
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Clark,
What is your experience w/ callery rootstocks for Euro pears? I seem to recall posted something about this on a thread, but I can’t find it.
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For what its worth, I bark grafted 2 euro pears and 2 asian pears to an unknown callery tree that I cut off about 3 feet above the ground. All 4 of the grafts not only were accepted, but grew all summer long and looked great when they lost their leaves last fall. Of course I know that 7-8 months of growth doesn’t prove a whole lot, but I thought I’d mention it. The grafts all grew more than 3.5 feet and looked extremely healthy. I’m very proud of this little project since it took a useless tree, benefited from its established root system, and hopefully will become a fruiting tree much faster than a newly planted tree would have. I will post an update this spring.
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I cleft grafted several sticks of moonglow on a callery pear lateral branches in my side yard last year and none of them survived the summer. Most of them leafed out and a few grew maybe 6-8 inches, then stopped and died in mid-late summer. Not sure if it was a rejection, disease, or just poor grafting technique. It was my first try at it. I’m debating whether to chop it down to a stump this year and bark graft Ayers, or just buy an Ayers and kill off the callery. I’m leaning toward the second option.
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Olpea,
My experience is callery like all rootstocks like some pears better than others. Duchess, Kieffer, seckel. Clapps favorite, Douglas, Clara frijs all take without issues. Duchess will be delayed and look like it did not take because it will be a month or two until it leafs out. Ayers was hit and miss as were many others so maybe 50-60% takes. Chojuro on my trees was 100% fail 100% of the time as an example. A friend mentioned similar experience with ohxf rootstocks with certain pears. Scott mentioned his experience is bet may be to vigourous for certain European pears but perfect for Asian pears. Harbin pesr rootstocks will not work many times due to decline for European pears but are used for Asian pears sometimes. Certain euro pears, I would even say 3/4 of the European pears callery are wonderful rootstocks for them. I have a 20 year old callery I have top worked twice never had a disease such as fireblight or scab etc. They are very hardy , very rodent resistant etc. Callery are great euro rootstocks but remember some wild trees graft easier than others. If you get a rootstock that rejects everything try Clara frijs or Douglas they have 100% takes for me.
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Don’t chop it out Barry another variety like Douglas or Clara frijs will take. Try several varities if you need to and then cut off the branches that fail and leave the ones that make it.
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City,
I strongly suspect you are growing a
Hybrid of betulifolia x callery. Sometimes people think they are growing callery when its actually not. This is what makes callery great http://m.bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/11/956.full .The department of agriculture was who brought callery in during the early 1900s. What makes it great rootstock is what makes it invasive in some areas. This is a link discussing hybridization with bet http://homeguides.sfgate.com/identification-pear-invasives-105018.html
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Orient, Moonglow, and Ayers for me have been compatible with my seedling Callery. The other varieties on Callery go through an inter-stem. As you know my seedling Callery might react differently than another seedling Callery. Bill
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Interesting link, Clark, and of course you may be right. Whatever the callery-looking pear tress is (we call them all Bradford around here!), it was here before I bought the place. I can’t imagine why the last owner would have planted them, but lots of people do. Believe it or not, another reason I may have been lucky is that I just happened to use Moonglow and Ayers fir Euro pears, so from what Bill just said it sounds like I got lucky there. (I wish I could say it was by design, but it wasn’t). The asians were Kikusui and 20th century. They didn’t do as well but were still alive and well at fall leaf-drop.
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City,
I your asians did not do great they may be normal callery. The callery has not been invasive in our area for several reasons. Mostly because the climate here is non conducive but I have saw new trees recently that make me believe someday it could happen. More people bring in ornamentals every year that make new flowering pear species. Your using your trees for their intended purpose which was as rootstock as do most of us who grow fruit. Plenty of nurseries still sell all the trees mentioned FRUIT TREE SEEDLINGS | Willamette Nurseries rootstock clonal seedling fruit tree ornamental seedlings . We need to use something for rootstocks and BET is the best choice for asians. Callery is a great choice for euro pears. Callery may be the best choice. Eventually those who grow those rootstocks as ornamental flowering pears will develop seedlings. Those seedlings when they occur here and I see them I graft them over. Land owners should kill those seedlings or graft them over. There are no laws against people planting ornamental pears to my knowledge so with that said large subdivisions have thousands of those ornamental pears in an area… I ordered 300 bet rootstocks and 100 callery this year and will graft them over this year or next. Some.e nurseries plant thousands. Used for their purpose as rootstock they produce tons of fruit and feed lots of people. My point was with all of this is when the government brought the callery in they did good by solving the problem of our need for rootstock that didn’t get fireblight. Ohxf pear rootstocks were another major break through for agriculture because they don’t get FB . If fireblight resistance rootstocks were not developed there would not be a pear industry today.
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This is great info. Here in Texas I have grafted euro Asian and hybrid on Callery with no problems. I have done hosui, nijiseki, and chojuro for sure. In fact my Dad has chojuro on Callery in his yard and it has been very productive for him. I’m told it’s good but he never shares any with me! Also almost all nurseries in Texas use Callery almost exclusively for pears or at least claim to. I don’t know what strain they use. I think I got mine from Willamette if I remember correctly.
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I appreciate all of the input! In my area of Western PA, I have just been noticing wild callary pears for the past several years, but they seem to be suddenly showing up all over. My kids lived in the Cincinnati area for a number of years and I noted them all over starting on my first visits there and across the river in N. KY about 10y ago , very wide spread from highway border plantings.
I have had my Bradford pear for about 25 years and just noted the new saplings on my ‘wild’ hillside recently - makes me wonder if there is something that has changed - a new pollinator causing fertile fruit or something else that caused the change here (dare I say climate change?)
I think I will give some Asian pear grafts a try (I am very raw at grafting) on them this spring, see what happens.
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Plenty of ‘volunteer’ callery seedlings here - and more appearing every year. I can’t graft 'em all - or cut & poison them all. But… I’ve had no issues grafting Asian, Euro, or hybrid pears onto any of them.
Initially, I was putting an 8-10" interstem of OHxF 513 (semi-dwarfing, compatible with Euro & Asian varieties, without the issue of Asian pear decline) … but recently have just been grafting the desired varieties directly ono callery.
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Lots of my experience is what i’ve learned the hard way and the other experience is what I read. @scottfsmith , @alan , @Lucky_P and others taught me a lot of what I know now. Lucky knows plenty about Harbin and callery and I frequently use him for a resource. Scott grows so many types of pears he knows more what’s compatible with what than I do. He taught me how to get stubborn varities to produce faster and good varities that don’t need help. Alan manages so many orchards and trees when it comes to pruning, production etc he is a go to for me. I may fill in some gaps that are helpful on varities but the true experts are the people who helped me learn. Those are the people that like @fruitnut and others pointed me yo the resources and helped me and others wanting to learn. So why use Harbin? In colder climates it is all that will live and at one time many nurseries grafted many pears on it. All rootstocks have a practical application its just matching the rootstock to the pear type and conditions. Thank you @amadioranch
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if lifespan/productive years is a vital aspect in one’s consideration, bradfords may not be topnotch, considering that some pears are the longest-lived among common pomes.
bradfords start declining at age 20…maybe other callery cultivars live longer
https://guilford.ces.ncsu.edu/2013/10/bradford-pear-a-mixed-blessing-in-the-landscape/
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Eboone,
Yes a new pollinator is it exactly and likely aristocrat. Bradford had a problem with weak branches so sometimes storm damage would occur. Bradford was sterile so it was harmless. Many new varities such as aristocrat were developed to prevent branch breakage during storms. Sometimes Asian pears top would die due to fireblight etc. Leaving bet rootstock to grow in its place it was grafted to. In light of those changes a one in a million chance seed would be fertile and grow from some variation of those conditions. The result was a new variety 100% fertile and 70% of the seed is viable and a hybrid stronger than ever. Trees revert back a generation or two and with callery that is a wild thorny tree that’s very resilient. As those small fruits are eaten by birds the seeds are spread fertilized by bird poop. As with anything in nature the variety gets stronger by natural selection. They are resistant to fireblight and other diseases, rodents, bugs, and deer.
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First Asian pears I planted were on Harbin rootstock.
I’m not in a particularly cold zone, so I’ve never sought out ussuriensis, and have just used whatever I had available - mostly volunteer seedling callery, with or without the OHxF 513 interstem.
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Come to think of it. I grafted 20th century to my dads Bardford Pear last year and they grew well. Even though they were grafted low on the canopy and I did not top work the tree. They received very little sun. More of an experiment than anything else.
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