Honestly a lot of the species in the apple tribe have nonzero compatibility with species in other genuses in the tribe. For instance there’s a few apple pear hybrids know. Still Sorbus sensu stricto seems to be the very best at it being able to hybridize with Amelanchier and Crataegus among many others which are the most distant crosses I’m aware of in the tribe (I wonder if crosses with the non fleshy fruited species would be possible too).
Btw the chokeberries I sampled were also weird in having a few fruits infected by rust and having some sort of issues with their leaves either an infection or nutrient deficiency. I’m probably not going to be using those ones in particular in my breeding project
Same here—they still have leaves. Mine are growing much more slowly than the same Aronia cultivars grafted onto pears at the same time, although it’s not really a fair comparison since the scions on the apple grafts were much smaller to begin with—only a little thicker than toothpicks—and were grafted in much less favorable positions for growth. The Aronia grafted onto pear is growing way more vigorously than the same cultivars on their own roots.
Photos of Aronia on apple and pear for comparison.
I’m curious—are yours grafted onto mature trees or onto rootstocks?
Mine are grafted to aronia that I planted spring of 2025. The aronia plants are still pretty small, so it is more of a bush. Below are pictures of the two aronia plants with the apple grafts. In the first one the apple graft is on the right side and in the second the two grafts are close to the middle of the photo.
Nice! Looking a lot better than mine. I’ll definitely be interested in seeing updates.
@Bernie mentioned in another thread that, in Russia, Aronia rootstocks are used in pear breeding to speed up the time to fruiting. It would be awesome if the same idea worked for apples. You’re the only person I’ve seen who’s tried this graft.
In an attempt to cross Aronia and pear, I grafted ×Sorbopyrus as an interstem between tetraploid Aronia rootstock and a diploid Aronia scion. After the grafts healed, I continuously defoliated the interstem in hopes of inducing the ×Sorbopyrus to flower sooner. My thinking was that defoliation might also cause a greater flow of Aronia-derived assimilates through the interstem, potentially increasing the chances of success in such a distant cross.
Does this look like a cluster of very slow-growing leaf buds, or could it be a flower bud?
I agree. I’m hoping the grafting helps with that. The breeders who created the first hybrid persimmons had repeated seedling failures before attributing their eventual success to preliminary vegetative approximation (reciprocal grafting). My thought was that using an interstem might be an improvement on that approach.
Did you graft it high? It’s possible to score the trunk and give it some “rooting” hormone to make it sprout and grow a branch, pruning the highest peak branches helps encourage growth down low too.
Sorry if you already saw this, but Stern’s Medlar may be exactly what you’re looking for, although at best it’s a pollen donor for breeding! Check it out.
