I’m curious if anyone is growing medlar and if so are you using ohxf , hawthorn, callery, quince, shipova, aronia, communis, betulifolia, ussuriensis etc…for rootstock? Here is a list of cultivars http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/20721500/catalogs/mescult.html
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I had medlar on quince. They had bad fireblight and quince rust so I took them out. I wrote a post on GW… “just say no to medlars”. It was long enough ago that “just say no” was still a thing.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1591610/just-say-no-to-medlars
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Every year I think about ordering a Medlar. And every year I don’t. I think if I had more space I would. But it seems like such a novelty.
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Good to know Scott I might save myself the trouble then.
They seem like a novelty to me as well but there must be something that makes them popular in Europe so maybe flavor?
Clark, do you know what they can be grafted onto?
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Delayed incompatibility would be my concern. It looks like quince, hawthorne, etc are all compatible but I question if 3-4 years later the growth will slow down. @scottfsmith will likely know better than anyone and he used quince so in this case I would at least use a quince interstem if I used another rootstock like ohxf333.
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I grafted a few onto OHXF 97 last year, all took and grew. I grafted very low on the stock, thinking that the scion will develop it’s own roots when I replant them with the union under the soil line. Hawthorne was recommended to me as the best understock for medlar, though Raintree does list OHXF as the rootstock they use.
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That’s smart Jesse in your situation where you have room for a full sized tree. They get very large on their own roots.
I think I kept medlars for ten years total and they showed no signs of graft incompatibility on quince. I am sure they were on quince, when I topworked the stock some quince sprouts came up. I cut the tree right at the soil line so I would be grating pear to quince and not to medlar.
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Had my first medlar yesterday. I’d say the descriptions of “tastes like apple sauce” are pretty accurate. I wasn’t blown away. It may be that I should have let it blet longer.
On the upside, this came from a little stick that I grafted onto hawthorn this very year, which is much better yield than some other plants I could mention (glares at his four barren 3-year-old persimmons).
I’d agree that it’s largely a novelty. I wouldn’t clear space for a whole tree, unless this improves drastically in the next few years.
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In my very limited experience, these are medium and dark. The flavor changes as the color does. Yours could go darker.
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Oh wow that looks rotten
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Next year I’ll wait longer. Maybe I’ll be more impressed then! If nothing else, it’s nice to have something you can harvest late November.
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The poet Geoffrey Chaucer called medlar “the fruit that til it’s rotten, is not ripe.” (Misquoting somewhat, probably.)
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The fruit tends to mold before it literally goes rotten. I just ran some pounds of these through an auger-type juicer. I removed only the sepal tips and the seeds, put skins and pulp through the machine. Have been using the resulting smooth paste as a sandwich spread.
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Thanks for posting pics of those lusciously bletted fruit- apt results for a tree called Cul du chien😉
My medlars put on some nice growth in the nursery row and are telling me that they are ready for their permanent homes. One even made a couple blossoms, but didn’t set fruit. The flowers were large and showy, I am thinking of planting mine into a prominent location to enjoy the ornamental qualities.
If anyone is processing theirs and wants to pass along some seed, I’d like to try growing some out next spring.
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I was wondering what to do with the seeds. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any other medlar around, so they all would have been self-pollinated. I can’t imagine they’d be very interesting genetically, especially if these are as bad as their apple relatives when it comes to seedling. Still, these are rare seeds! It seemed wrong to toss them out.
I opted to throw them on the compost pile, which is the surest way I know of germinating seeds.
Actualy Medlar hybrids naturally with hawthorn. Even weirder still they can form graft-chimaera.
Source Wikipedia
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Is there any variety that comes especially recommended? And from any particular nursery? Edible Landscaping has Royal and Breda, but they’re on the expensive side. I’d like to acquire some to breed with other pomme fruits.