I have started working with cydonia, probably 3-5 years from hopes of fruit. I grafted a number of varieties onto Quince A rootstock last year , most overwintered fine here in z5a.
Realizing that I am at the northern boundary of reported hardiness, I have been perusing cultivars and selections that have demonstrated cold hardiness. This past winter I recieved some Polish rootstock selections (Pigwa S1-S3)from Corvallis that could be superior to Quince A, and I hope to create stool beds of these.
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Your description of quince sounds so interesting. I like the part about its aroma and also about cooking thick, dense marmalade. I have no space for the whole tree though. Can quince be successfully grafted on apple or pear? Also can medlar be grafted on apple or pear? I would like to try both of them.
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@Antmary ,
@scottfsmith did the work on medlar and quince for us so Iām not speaking from my experience on the subject. Scott grew several quince and medlar and had disease pressure with medlar that caused him to stop growing it. Iām growing quince on pear right now and will not dedicate an entire tree to quince until I determine if I like it. Medlar can be grafted to pear if you want to try it. Aroniaās can also be grafted to pear if you want some to color juice and increase antioxidant levels of your cider. I think @ampersand is doing a pear on Aronia experiment this year. Medlar would be a good thing to add to his experiment on Aroniaās. I grow a lot of Aroniaās now and though I know of their compatibility I have no interest in pursuing experiments with medlar at this time because of the disease issues.
I had major problems with fireblight and quince rust, so I had to take out my quince and medlar (medlar also gets both badly). Quince are really excellent for cooking so I am trying one more time with some supposedly fireblight-resistant seedlings the USDA sent me (which I also sent scions of to Clark). Quince rust can be controlled with myclobutanil, I will probably do that if they prove to be OK on the fireblight front. So far they have not gotten badly blighted, no worse than the nearby apples, so maybe I will eventually have quince.
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Send me some Medlar and I will 
Pear on aronia is 100% so far.
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Donāt know anyone growing Medlar right now. USDA has medlar wood http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/20721500/catalogs/mescult.html
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=11325
These are the quince that they offer http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/20721500/catalogs/cydacc.html
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Does anyone here like the taste of Medlar? I personally donāt care for it, fresh or otherwise.
Richard,
Iāve never tasted either quince or medlar.
I will try to graft quince and medlar next year if I can find the scions. They both are interesting fruits.
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My mother has Persian friends who love medlar. They graciously left some with her for me to try. I was happy to finally get to taste them, and thankful that theyād already taken the guesswork out of the bletting and such.
Later my mother offered me more, I declined. It was interesting to try, and not bad necessarily, but not worth the effort to me.
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In terms of graftingā¦
Iāve grafted Euro Pears onto my Medlar,
and Medlar and Euro Pears onto Quince (and theyāve all taken and lasted this year).
Some Euro Pears are not long-term quince compatible (you can see compatible ones listed on Corvalisās website: http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/20721500/catalogs/pyrcompatible.html)ā¦ They do say you can use Doyenne Du Comice as in interstem then and maybe get any E Pear then on to Quince.
Im not sure about Apples but you can read most people always seem to say Winter Banana as an interstem might work out, and then can add any other apple:
http://www.werribeeparkheritageorchard.org.au/uncategorized/grafting-pears-apples-onto-quince/
http://www.cloudforest.com/cafe/gardening/grafting-quince-t2157.html
Speaking of medlarsā¦ I also enjoy my medlar. It āripensā (aka ābletsā) about Thanksiving to Mid December for me in Philadelphia, and Iāve refrigerated them and also enjoyed the fruit around Christmas time too. Its kinda a novelty but enjoyable, tastes like apple-cinnamon butter. Pretty small tree. No disease pressures for me on medlar (Persian Medlar is the variety I grow ā¦ and I think I grafted 4/5 other varieties but no fruit off those yet).
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Quince and pears are listed in multiple databases as having the same water content, 84%. This is in line with my experience running quince through an auger juicer; the yield by weight has been about 7/8 juice and 1/8 dry ejecta. Ripe pears would probably juice better in a centrifugal machine.
Thanks Larry. Iām pretty sure youāre talking about cultivars of Cydonia oblonga vs. Pyrus communis? I have experienced this tannin effect before among cultivars of Diospyros lotus. If there is a ālowerā tannin C. oblonga with otherwise good flavor Iād be interested in trying it here.
My experience is much like a West Coast version of armyof da 12 munkeys. Crimea, Kuganskaya and Kaunching are my favorites. These Russian ones are great for eating raw. They have so much flavor, like the most extreme heirloom apple you could ever find. I mostly eat them in slices. I eat a lot of them this time of year. My tool shed storage apples have almost run out, so I go through the frozen fruit. Quinces are so astonishingly productive that I can possibly eat that much in October, even though I like them a lot. Yes, slices in salads. We have to prune them heavily every year, and those cuttings become trees, then pear trees the next year. Yes, on list of compatible pear varieties. Mine get the rust. Pruning in dry weather helps. I use fungal compost tea to fight the disease and it works great. Quince is one of the most powerful anti-angiogenic fruit. It stops cancer from growing by cutting its supply of blood vessels. We all have cancer in our bodies. The question is how are we responding to it. Who is winning today? I do like medlars as well. Nice niche fruit.
John S
PDX OR
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When ingested, anti-angiogenesis compounds work throughout the body and not in a specific area of malady. Such an approach to controlling cancer is comparable to ingesting radioactive salts to destroy a tumor.
Your reply is very confrontational. Do you think that eating quince is equivalent to eating radioactive salts? Do you think you know every spot in your body where there is a cancerous cell? I am trying to understand your objection to my post.
John S
PDX OR
My post wasnāt about Quince, but rather the concept of orally ingesting anti-angiogenesis compounds as a cancer control.
I understand. My post and the thread were about quince. Eating fruits and vegetables is a healthy preventative measure for cancer, and quince is among the best for that. Thatās what I was saying. I wasnāt telling someone how to respond to a diagnosed cancer. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and in this case, it tastes much better.
John S
PDX OR
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John, your intentions are good 
.
However, as of this date there is no panacea for cancer. It is largely a genetic condition.
That adage is ok for some situations. My point is that there is a difference between individual treatment and prevention. Itās pretty clear that anti-angiogenesis compounds do not prevent cancer. Over use of them (you wonāt get there eating quince fruits!) has crippling side effects.
A few decades ago an enterprising employee at an herbal medicine marketing firm read about the drug Annonacin being microencapsulated and then injected locally to destroy tumors; e.g., prostrate and others. Knowing the source of Annonacin, this person contracted a south American factory of guanabana juice to produce a distilled powder. This powder was then encapsulated in tablets at a daily dosage of 600mg Annonacin and sold in U.S. herbal stores as a cancer preventative. The people that ābought intoā the marketing program ended up developing Atypical Parkinsonās Disease ā a non-reversible condition.
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Hi Richard,
I appreciate the positive tone of your last comment.
I am going to disagree with you about cancer being a largely genetic condition. The reports that Iāve seen from a wide variety of nutrition based MDās describe it as more than 75% or more based on epigenetics, that is based on what we do to make our genes respond. Mostly diet, then exercise, then environmental exposure and detoxification from that. There have been many cultures in the world with 25 times less cancer than we have in the United States. We donāt come from one genetic stock, so it is unlikely to be genetics. But the places that had 25 times less didnāt eat processed food, sit all day inside and play video games. What they did in their lives was dramatically healthier.
Cancers typically develop slowly, over decades until we can diagnose them when they are large enough. All the time that we are eating natural fresh whole fruits vegetables and mushrooms, we are eating anti-cancer compounds. Anti-angiogenesis does help if the cancer is so small that you canāt diagnose it, but you donāt want it to get bigger.
As I said in my last post, I agree with you that prevention and treatment are different things.
Iām sure glad that I didnāt buy that guyās Annonacin tablets. Right now the only medications I take are fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms, and thatās mostly stuff that I grow in good soil organically. I aim to keep it that way as long as I can.
The side effects of eating healthy fruits and vegetables (and mushrooms) are a smile on your face, a long healthy productive life, and lots of chances to share your ideas with your friends about growing them.
John S
PDX OR
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