Asian pear rootstock recommendations for partial shade in Middlesex MA (USDA Zone 6b)

General Fruit Growing
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Hello everyone,

I’m planning to plant a couple of Asian pear trees this year and I’m hoping someone might be able to advice me on suitable rootstocks for trees that will be grown in partial shade (getting about 3-5 hours of direct sunlight with filtered light for the rest of the day) in Zone 6b in the Northeast (Middlesex County in MA).

I’m hoping to have the trees top out at around 15’ if possible. Would it be best to opt for standard tree size rootstocks such as Betulifolia/Calleryana to have sufficient vigor under shade, or could semi-dwarfing rootstocks like OHxF 333, 87, or 97 still work if fruiting was prevented for the first 2-3 years?

Also, if anyone has suggestions for any specific cultivars that are more shade tolerant, I’d love to hear about those too. I’m considering Korean Giant and Chojuro at this time and plan to graft on a few more varieties once the trees have established themselves.

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Since nobody else has responded, I’ll kick things off.

I think keeping an Asian at 15’, with regular pruning, is possible with calleryana or OHxF-97, and definitely doable with OHxF-87 or OHxF-333. In fact, I would worry that OHxF-333 would be too dwarfing for an Asian pear, and you might end up with a perpetual runt.

For the east coast, especially if you have heavy clay soil, I am personally partial to calleryana. I have a lot of pear trees on calleryana and various flavors of OHxF, and I think that callery does better in my Georgia clay (it does not do as well in alkaline soils that you are more likely to encounter in some places out west). Both rootstocks are highly resistant to fireblight. Betulifolia is even more vigorous than calleryana or OHxF-97, and is tolerant of all sorts of soil types, but it is more susceptible to fireblight (although fireblight is surely less of a problem in MA than in places further south).

One thing to bear in mind: Generally speaking, when trees are grown in shade, they don’t become more compact. Rather, they tend to have “leggier” growth – tall and spindly, trying to reach the light, with greater internode distance, like saplings in a forest. That means less leaves, less fruiting spurs, and more height. So getting a more vigorous rootstock is not necessarily going to be the solution to your problems.

That said, I don’t have any of my Asian pears in shade, so I can’t speak from direct experience, but it seems to me that 5 hours of direct sunlight a day is not too bad. Given that most of the Asian pear varieties fruit pretty heavily, I think you’ll still get fruit and not have too difficult of a time managing the trees.

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Thanks for the your response @marten! Very helpful. I’m going to move away from considering OHxF333 as I too suspected that an overly dwarfing rootstock may runt out.

The area I’m planning to plant these in has some clay in the soil. As for fireblight, I haven’t seen it yet, but some of the wild crab apples (there’s about a dozen of them) and the two apple trees on the property do get a severe case of apple ceder rust. I hope bringing in pears won’t result in introducing fireblight, but as long as it’s not severe, I should be able to manage it.

OHxF97 looks like a nice option, but I don’t see any reliable nurseries having them in stock. Bob Willis Nursery appears to have Chojuro on calleryana still in stock, but I haven’t found a nursery advertising Korean Giant on calleryana in stock yet. Raintree carries all varieties on OHFx87 which is an option, though they are pricey. Most other reliable nurseries have these cultivars on either OHxF333 or Betulifolia. I’m leaning towards not going with Betulifolia either as it’ll likely yield a bigger tree (with the extra vigor and leggier growth in shade) than other rootstocks would based on your comments.

In your experience, is there a big difference in size/vigour between OHxF87, OHxF97 and calleryana for Asian pears? How tall/wide do they get for you at maturity (with and without pruning)?

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It looks like fedco still has some OHXF 97 in stock! https://www.fedcoseeds.com/trees/pyrus-ohxf97-rootstock-242

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Ison’s still has both in stock and I called and they’re on calleryana. If you’re worried about fireblight, they also have Shinko which is reportedly most resistant of the Asian pears (KG is also fairly resistant).

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Also see more info and nurseries for Asian pears on various root stock here from earlier this week:

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Thanks for looking that up @benfordlepley, I was actually hoping to find pre-grafted one or two year old trees on OHxF97 rather than grafting them myself. I think the Asian pears that Fedco has on sale maybe on a standard stock (guessing Betulifolia as I’ve seen the letter “A” at the end of the product number be designated for trees on standard rootstock). They also don’t seem to carry the two varieties I was thinking of starting off with this year, though I’m open to switching to a different cultivar.

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Thanks for the reference @Xander! Lots of relevant information on that post. Glad to hear that what Ison’s carries is on calleryana. That’s definitely an option for me. I did consider Shinko too, but read mixed comments in a few places about the flavor, so I thought of skipping it for now. I do plan on grafting Shinko on later though. I’d certainly like to avoid the ones that are most susceptible to fireblight and from what I’ve read so far both KG and Chojuro can get it, but it’s not as bad as some other varieties like Shinseiki.

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I can’t really answer your question from direct experience because my pear trees are still young. But I can give some insights.

Because of fireblight pressure in the South, and to promote earlier fruiting, I bend branches whenever possible rather than prune them off, and I do almost all my pruning in winter, when fireblight infection is not a concern. This tends to make my trees rather wide, as I bend down the long shoots that reach for the sky during the growing season, hinging them if necessary to turn them into laterals in order to keep the tree low and make harvesting easier.

For an example on callery rootstock, I have a Shinko and a couple of KGs on their fourth leaf. The Shinko is about 6 feet tall and maybe 10 feet wide (note that a lot of this width is unbranched, single-season stem growth bent laterally). The KGs are a little bit smaller, at about the same height and 6 to 8 feet wide. (Note that my Shinko started out with better roots and a slightly thicker caliper, so that is the likely explanation for its larger size.) In my climate, it is no problem for any of the Asians on callery to push 6’+ of vertical growth in a couple of months in the growing season, without fertilization.

As another data point, I have Daisui Li and Shin Li (Asian hybrids) on OHxF-87. They are considerably less vigorous and by mass of wood, I’d guess they are no more than a quarter of the size of the Asians on callery that are on their same season. However, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison because both of these trees suffered due to persistent deer attacks (the deer really wanted these particular trees and partially broke through my caging to damage them). That said, the amount of growth that they push in a season, stem by stem, is less than half of what the trees on callery push.

I have several European pears (including Warren and Ayers) on callery, and they are very vigorous, with maybe 8’ of shoot growth in a season. I have Potomac (a European pear that is generally considered vigorous, or at least more vigorous than Warren) on OHxF-87, and it has grown far less.

I have trees on OHxF-97 and betulifolia, but they were planted more recently. So far, they each seem to be as vigorous as callery.

I think a lot of the difference between the vigor of OHxF-87 and callery in my location has to do with my soil (heavy clay) and with callery’s particular resilience to less-than-ideal conditions. For instance, I do not generally water my trees, and even though my region in the South is usually humid, there can be dry spells in summer. Callery is probably more tolerant of both very wet conditions (like the very wet early springs where the soil stays saturated with water for long periods) as well as periods of relative drought, and just continues to grow. I suspect that the difference in apparent vigor between the two rootstocks would be narrower if my trees were kept in more ideal conditions.

As far as total size is concerned, pears – especially Asians – will tend to slow down quite a bit once they enter full fruit production. My Shinko has already started fruiting and my other Asians have produced a lot of flower buds. But total potential size is going to be very different in different regions – the longer growing season of the South and relatively mild conditions (save for disease) will probably mean that my trees will top out larger than if they were grown in Massachusetts. Either way, at this point, I’m not too concerned about keeping them manageable just with branch bending and winter pruning.

On the other hand, these Asian pear trees – in an old orchard in China – have certainly gotten pretty large, but they are reportedly over 100 years old and in their native growing conditions:

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Source: Old pear trees generate new revenues in Hebei - Chinadaily.com.cn

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I have the same reservations about Shinko, but I noticed the people who tended to rate it highly were in the South, like me, so I’m going to take a chance on it for the extra resistance and see if maybe it just needs more heat/sun than others to develop flavor. If not, then I guess it will be an experiment in grafting in a few years!

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Hi There,
I suggest you put your location in your profile, too, something broad like Middlesex County, MA. I am in Worcester County zone 6 a, probably less than an hour west of you. I have grown Asian pears for 15 years. I have Euro, too.

If your planting area get only 3-5 hours of sun, I don’t think the 3-4 hours of direct sun will work. If it does, it probably will not work out well over time for pears.

My pears get average between 4- 6 hours of direct sun. Those with the 4 hours of sun don’t do well over time, esp. when it is humid with lot of rain and cloudy days (typical New England. Last year, with a lot of rain, my pears developed severe sooty blotch. Those in more shade were totally covered. Sooty blotch stunted the trees’ development. None of the fruit developed to full size. Most were underdeveloped and not edible.

I do not want to rain on your parade but our climate does not have strong sun to begin with. Fruit trees love full sun. They don’t reach their potential the less sun they have. 3-4 hours of New England sun? I don’t recommend it. That’s from my experience. 5-6 hours of full sun, it OK, not very good. 7 hours up, great.

I used to have Shinko but it did not produce good quality fruit in my yard. Maybe, I did not give it more years to round to form. At the time. East Coast growers of Shinko had the same issue about the fruit quality. Further inland growers of Shinko has praised it.

Korean Giant is great for us. Tasty, juicy, sweet large fruit. Ripen in early Oct to late Oct, long hanging time.

I have not tried Chojuro. I like Kosui and Hosui. The only one that got killed by Fire blight was Shinseiki. Too bad, I like the fruit. Other varieties have fire blight strikes on small limbs. I cut the infected areas off. Fire blight has not kill those trees,

I don’t have BET or Callery. My pears are on OHxF 97 and 87. I don’t like tall trees. 97 will grow over 20 ft if not pruned. My trees on 87 have grown to 15 feet but have not stopped growing. They need pruning.

Hope this helps.

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All Asian pears can get fire blight. “Resistant” just means it tends to take out a branch instead of the whole tree. I’d look more for trees that the fruit matures early since they’re going to be partly in the shade and you probably have a short growing season.

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Thank you, there’s a lot of very useful information here! It’s good to know about bending branches vs pruning as a height control measure. The way you trained your Shinko and KG on calleryana seems to give a tree in the size range I’m looking for (I wouldn’t mind them being a little bit taller). I’d definitely like to try your method if I get a couple of trees.

Though the experience @mamuang shared growing Asian pears in my area unfortunately seems to indicate that I probably don’t have the climate to have them under partial shade. I may have to see whether I can find a better spot for them or use the space for some other type of fruit.

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It certainly seems like there’s a lot of variance based on location and per mamuang’s comment it’s not particularly flavorful in my area. I would still like to play around with grafting a Shinko on to one of mine if I move forward with Asian pears. Hopefully they’re tasty for you when they fruit!

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Hi @mamuang,

Thanks so much for sharing your experience growing Asian pears! It’s super helpful having first hand information specific to my location. I lived in Worcester county for a couple of years some time back and the climate where I live now is very similar. It’s just a little bit warmer with slightly less snow and the snow doesn’t stay around for as long as it does further inland.

Based on your comments, it doesn’t seem very practical for me to grow them in partial shade given our climate. I had read sometime back that pears are more shade tolerant than other fruit trees which is why I thought of getting a couple of Asian pear trees. Perhaps the shade tolerance I read about was only relevant to European pears. Seems like in practice, I’ll either need to find a better spot with more sun for them or consider a different type of fruit (not many options other than crab apples and mulberries that fruit heavily here even in almost full shade).

Does sooty blotch come about every year for you or does it happen in years where there’s more rain than usual?

May I also ask how old your OHxF87 trees are that are 15’ tall? Also what height do you maintain your OHxF97 trees at? Mostly looking to compare vigour/precocity between these two rootstocks when grown in our area.

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Thanks! I too understood “fireblight” resistance to mean that they’re less likely to get it, but aren’t completely immune, and if the resistant ones are infected, they can be managed by cutting off affected branches at least a foot below where the infection is.

You make a good point about considering fruit that matures sooner if it’s under shade. So maybe KG is not a good option for shade, but I am now considering looking for a sunnier spot (the comment immediately above indicates that shade doesn’t work well for Asian pears in my area), which if I find may provide better conditions for KG.

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Sooty blotch happens every year but I spray fungicide. It helps but a year that is very wet like last year, even several sprays could not stop it.

I talk about growing fruit trees in a 3-4 hours a day of sun spot will not be successful in our climate. People further south got hotter sun at a longer time. It could work.

The fruit tree in sucha shady area that might work is mulberry but typically, it grows to 30 -40 ft tall. You can try Girardi, a dwarf variety. It won’t grow tall.

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Thanks for mentioning Gerardi! I didn’t know about that cultivar. I already have two mature red mulberry trees (around 35’ tall, with a caliper of 15"-17"). One’s a male and the other a female. They’re about 100’ apart. Both are under heavy shade with taller oak, elm, ash and pine trees around them. The female tree produces massive amounts of fruit (enough to bend the lower branches right to the ground in some years, they’re typically at a height of 7’). We just pick a little for ourselves (the fruit is small and don’t taste good until they’re fully ripe and turn black) and leave the rest for the birds and squirrels who are constantly on the tree from morning till evening during the 3-4 weeks that the fruit is ripening.

I also have a couple of dwarf mulberries (cultivar wasn’t mentioned, I’m guessing black mulberry) that I bought last year and another 3 or 4 ornamental dwarf varieties (some are shrubs and a couple are super dwarfs that were bearing fruit at less than 1 foot in height, I think they’re a couple of cultivars used in bonsai).

So I think I may have too many mulberries already :slightly_smiling_face:, but will consider getting a Gerardi if I do add another. I was actually looking for types of fruit other than crab apples and mulberry that do alright in shade to add variety. I’m getting a few sour cherries which I’ve read do alright under partial shade. I’ll see whether I can find a spot that gets more sun to see whether planting pears is an option.