A shoutout for assistance please: tree records

General Fruit Growing
#1

I am trying to establish recording criteria for different types of fruit trees / orchards. Already use these for apples and pears (variety, age class, rootstock, life expectancy, general condition, pruning, disease, fruiting, ecology, recommended workplan assessment, image library), but would really appreciate any “special” criteria pertinent to other types of fruit trees / orchards. Thank you.

Can you plant pear trees below rootstock to get a standard size tree?
#2

@Adrian-OrchardKeeper
I’ve found in my area wild seedling rootstocks work the best for my pears eg callery and Bet. Apples i use mm111. Plums I use prunus Americana primarily. Bush cherries eg. carmine jewel I prefer on their own roots. My mm111 seem short lived because trees I planted 23 years ago are already showing Decline. Guess they have another 5-12 years. The callery are supposed to be short lived but showing no signs of slowing down. I suspect seedling pears are always longer lived but the problem with my theory is we do not have enough life to prove it. Think you will enjoy this thread Napoleon’s army planted pear trees fact or fiction?. What seedling did they use to graft to? How much do environmental factors play a part in things? I’ve observed pear trees in my area that I’m told are from late 1800’s early 1900’s but no one can prove the claims without a core test for rings to my knowledge. Makes me want to root cuttings but who would be around in 200 years to check my work?

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#3

Many thanks for the reply. Appreciated.

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#5

Well, surely you can root pear cuttings. That is the only roots for pears being sold by Copenhaven Farms, according to their website.

On another matter, taking cuttings and rooting them could probably be done for most apples. Just like any other plant, some cultivars will root pretty easily under the right conditions, and for some the results will be too bad to be practical.

Grafting works so well, getting apple cuttings or pear cuttings to root hasn’t grown into fashion.

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#6

Thanks very much for your response. Yes, useful summaries are the route we want to follow.

#7

Thanks for replying.

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#8

@BlueBerry
The real question is what is our goal? Do we want to grow the world pears they bulldoze for houses? I’m not sure why I would root them for longevity . Do we need apples that live longer than 30-40 years? I’d guess mm111 goes that long and I’m sure longer lived trees matter only to the younger generation.