Aronia as rootstock

General Fruit Growing
#29

Kelby I wanted to confirm your experiment results so I grafted a couple of my yellow pear scions on aronia. They grafted very easy and are beginning to leaf out. The small yellow pear I grow does not set fruit quickly so we will see how it goes. If my results are the same we can assume grafting pear on aronia always causes fast production. I’ve never saw an aronia with fireblight so you likely already know what I’m thinking! We will see what the fruit size is like.

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#30

This year i have grafted aronia to apple rootstock :grinning:.

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#31

More experience is going to be needed, but I think there are going to be some graft incompatibility issues after a few years. I’m seeing literally no root growth on the Aronia and the scions rapidly outgrowing the rootstock. Probably a phloem/xylem issue, sugars aren’t getting to the roots.

My Shipova on Aronia is exhibiting similar mismatched growth, though not as severe as with pears, and is very poorly rooted. I’m going to have to stake it, keeps leaning further and further.

Just be wary if you try this!

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#32

Yeah, I have a few European pears and Shipova on Aronia. They seem healthy but the cultivars are about twice the diameter of the Aronia after a year or two.

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#33

Very interesting experiments! I’ve read a bit about similar trials, particularly using cotoneaster, from the folks in Alberta and old publications, and they stress the key to success is to keep some nurse rootstock growth (kept trimmed down so as to not outgrow graft) to feed the roots. Wonder if that might help with the aronia? Sue

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#34

Bernie was doing a lot of work on cotton easter in Alberta. Bernie used pictures of a pear i top worked as well as a tutorial for the group. Bernie is better known as the gentleman who imported the cold hardy Russian pears into Canada. He has done lots of work to promote pears and i’m very impressed with his results. Here is a place to start reading about his work Compatibility grafting? - #47 by clarkinks & here is when i learned of the russian pear Krazula in 2015 being for sale Krazulya Pear - #2 by clarkinks
Here is a history of some of Bernies work Russian pears for zone 2 - some info I found
This is Bernies corresponse from 2003
" NAFEX] New Ultra Hardy Russian Pears

Bernie Nikolai bnikolai at shaw.ca
Sat Oct 11 01:08:48 EDT 2003

> A friend in south western Siberia, near Barnul told me about very new Russian pears that have been just released after a very long (several decades in some cases) breeding cycle. Apparently pears are very much more difficult to breed if you want excellent quality and excellent hardiness than apples. Pyrus Ussuriensus, the Siberian Pear which is hardy to -50F and colder, was always used in the crosses. There were many F1, F2, F3 crosses to get the quality of a european pear but the hardiness of the siberian pear. The pears are at the “Lisavenko Horticultural Research Intstitute For Siberia” in Barnul, which is in south west Siberia, and also at the arboretum at the University of Chelyabinsk, in Chelyabinsk, Siberia. They were all developed in Siberia, and all apparently take at least -40F and then some without damage. The newly released pears are so new, that apparently many people in Russia are not even aware of them. > > These pears, according to the descriptions, are impressive to say the least. A golden delicious apple, which does grow in southern Russia, is rated 4.5 out of 5 in their taste tests. These new pears are 4.5 to 4.9 out of 5 in terms of taste, ie fully commercial quality. There are about 20 of these pears just released. A few of the names, and comments, translated from the Russian: > > Krazulya (Beauty), tastiest of the early pears, ripe mid to late August, 4.7 out of 5 taste rating. A summer pear with excellent sweet taste with a hint of spice. > Kraznobokaya (Red Skinned)- easily handles -45C (thats about -50F!), tart when ripe in late September, but stores very well, and becomes a 4.9 out of 5 taste in storage. Large, to 200 grams (a supermarket apple is about 130 grams) > Decabrinka (of December) large, to 180 grams, ripe late September, stores to the new year, 4.7 out of 5 rating. These are just 3 of the 20 or so. Others have names (translated into English) Late, Hanging, Sweetie Pie, Taiga Forest, Rich, Northern Girl, Fairy, Secular, Oval, Rainbow, Lel, Perun, Swarog, Kupava (names of early pagan Russian deities) and a few others I can’t recall. > Because of the siberian pear used in their ancestory, siberian pear is supposed to make an excellent and ultra hardy rootstock for these new varieties. > > I personally have contacted the Agriculture Canada stations at Morden, Manitoba and Kentville, Nova Scotia so they can import these pears to Canada for testing. Unfortunately, Russia is in near chaos now, and their faxes and letters remain unanswered. Perhaps some of the US folk on this list, especially those in the colder areas with an interest in pears, might be interested in contacting the US authorities to import these trees for testing to a US government facility for spring of 2004? I have no further info on phone numbers or addresses other than the info above, so they will have to do some digging for contacts, phone numbers, addresses, etc. on their own. It would help if the people calling spoke Russian as well. I would suggest a phone call by a US government agriculture official who speaks Russian, as mail and faxes are not being answered, according to the Agriculture Canada people up here. Good luck on it all. This might be a worthy project for someone in the US interested in these pears, to get the trees over to a US government agriculture test facility for testing in spring of 2004. Our Canadian officials seem stymied, or perhaps a bit too placid to follow things through more tenaciously, but perhaps “good old Yankee ingenuity” can get these trees over to North America for testing. > Bernie Nikolai > Edmonton, Alberta >

More inform"
There is more info here if you want to know more
The pears you may not have heard of and should consider growing - #148 by clarkinks

Are there recommended mini-dwarf rootstocks for pears?
#35

@clarkinks
Any updates on the pears on aronia rootstock?

Did the fruit ripen?

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#36

@ampersand is the one who got pears mine has not produced yet. He has not been on since jan 19

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#37

Whoops.
Thanks Clarkinks

@ampersand
Im interested in how the pear is doing on aronia stock and if the fruit ripened?

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#38

I am wondering about grafting the aronia on top ?
Has anyone tried this with pear ?

I have a aronia on a Ark. Black Apple branch, going on 3yrs
Had a few berries last year.
It just does not look happy there , not much growth, but alive.

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#39

I know @ampersand seems to have dropped off the forum- but has anyone else tried aronia as rootstock? I want to know how long the graft will live. I have a few very small aronia I am going to try with. Mostly just to keep the scion alive before I can add to another frankentree, but might plant with graft below ground to root scion.

#40

I’m probably going on year 3 and 4 with Pear and Shipova on Aronia. Shipova and a couple of the pears bloomed last spring but didn’t set any fruit.

I posted some pictures of my crazy graft unions somewhere. The pear are more than twice the diameter at the union, but they’ve survived some really heavy winds that have broken grafts on other trees. It may be because the aronia stalks are flexible, so the trees can bend with the wind.

I think my varieties on aronia are Ayers, Conference, and Honeysweet.

BTW, Shipova flower buds are enormous.

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#41

@franc1969, I had pretty good success with grafting seckel on an Aronia, I started from seed in central Missouri. I think it was A. melanocarpa but now I don’t remember for sure. Anyway, it was still alive after 5 years when I moved and left it behind. I think it took a couple years to set fruit, then was ripening about 4 fruits a year (seckel pears are small). It largely stopped growing at about 4 feet. I was forever pruning off the aronia root suckers surrounding the “tree”. I would consider it a novelty or maybe a way to induce early fruiting but not a way to get much fruit!

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#42

Just bumping this thread up to see how people’s pear/shipova/aronia grafts are going. I have a full grown aronia in my yard, and would like to graft it over to something tastier.

Did any of yours produce fruit? How did you handle the mismatch in size between the rootstock and scion? Any advice for success? If I keep an aronia nurse branch, will that help?

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#43

Clark, how did this work out? And do you think grafting low on the aronia would allow the pear to root itself later? I hadn’t tried grafting yet, but will do it this winter.

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#44

@franc1969

The good news is there are no problems with the pear indicating my small yellow pear was completely compatible. The bad news is it didn’t out grow the stem it just grew the same diameter and not showing any signs of blooming. Since I did several grafts this was no one off it did it several times.

#45

So that pear is not completely compatible, then. That’s the same as standard pear, 6+ years no bloom. I am thinking that something like a perry pear might be as unsuccessful. Almost all of those are not compatible with quince as rootstock- they need an interstem. Buerre Hardy is recommended, but that isn’t widely available. I may try to find something similar.

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#46

@franc1969

It’s actually the incompatibility of quince that makes it fruit faster. I’ve got unusual rootstocks that are highly incompatible with anything which produce very quickly. Quince is tolerant of some pears but not actually compatible. The easiest pears to graft - pear interstems . The research I’ve done on pears is extensive Interstem aka interstock Pear Grafting . Why do all that work.is the question and this thread explains some of it My latest pear experiments in early fruiting . Wild Callery might all be genetically diverse but that can be useful How tough are callery as rootstocks? Why use them? . Some things are hard to put together Pear rootstocks influence on Fruit size there is a great deal we don’t know. Pay very close attention to that last link as I fruited many pears in just a year or two. Some rootstock such as ohxf333 do indeed force a pear to produce fruit faster but the fruit can be smaller and off flavored the first couple of years. The experimental rootsocks I grow are definately fruiting quickly.

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#47

@ampersand
How is that pear on Aronia doing from 2016 ?

#48

It barely grew roots and never set fruit, so I replaced it. I suspect there was partial graft incompatibility, the Shipova was much larger than the aronia at the end. Perhaps there wasn’t enough energy flow to the rootsz who knows.

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