I should be receiving three benchgrafts from @39thparallel on Wednesday. Two Asian pears on OHF 333 and one European pair on quince rootstock. I’m debating how I want to set them up.
I could plant them directly in their forever homes right away, but I’m afraid of the drought we had last year and that I won’t be able to stay on top of watering them as often.
I’m also toying with the idea of putting them in 10 gallon tall grow bags and putting them on drip line in my vegetable garden. I’ve done this in the past for my figs so they can get good and strong before putting them in the ground. I would keep the bench grafts in their grow bags through the summer and put them in the ground in the fall of 2025 after they go dormant.
There should be some instructions with them. I recommend people plant them directly in the soil in a garden bed where they can keep a close eye on them and baby them along the first year. If you’re successfully growing most of your stuff in containers then grow bags / pots is an option. Wherever they get the most attention is best. I prefer the nursery bed because you have the option of leavening them there until spring. Trees suck up a lot of nutrients and will need supplemental fertilizer in smaller containers.
I’ve tried both ways but not with grow bags instead pots. For me setting them out in their final home and babysitting them the first until the become established is best. Pots seem to delay the first year in ground babysitting by a year. Then you have to baby sit them even more because they are bigger and require more water than when they were smaller.
I actually prefer a newly planted tree to be about 2 to 3 foot tall without a trimmed top when I set them out. Much less water is needed than say a 5 or 6 footer.
I bag mine and keep them out in one spot on new grafts. By third leaf I will put them in the ground. That is how UGA is doing there Heritage Orchard and it seems to work well.
I vote for the ground. Water them well when you plant them and then every couple weeks in the first year. After that they should do fine without any extra attention. If there’s ever another severe drought, you can water them. A heavy watering once every few weeks is probably better than continuously.
Pears that get lots of water put on lots of growth, which unfortunately makes them more susceptible to fireblight.
I do all my veggie gardening in grow bags because the area I could effectively run a drip line to for my veggies has black walnut trees nearby. their “forever home” will be far from the walnuts, but also far from irrigation and they won’t receive that extra bit of care.
Sounds like the grow bags are the way I will go and I will fertilize once I know the grafts are well established.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply and thanks for my new trees!
I’d put them in the ground. If you’re afraid you can’t keep them watered, maybe plant them in your garden with the drip line and transplant next year- or when dormant in fall (I have never lost a dormant pear in transplant). The water demands are only going to get greater the larger the tree gets. Pots need more attention than ground. So if your going to be in the same boat next year, just plant them in their final spot and mulch well… maybe keep them well trimmed (i.e. fewer leaves). I use a nursery bed with a sprinkler with a timer for most of my new grafts.
That’s the current plan. I heavily mulch all my in ground trees in my yard and water as often as I can and all but 1 have survived. All of these have been older grafts though, at least a year old, and I want to put the extra care into these pears to make sure the new grafts take.
Maybe I’m missing something here. I’ve never grown pears, but every other grafted tree I’ve received that was at least a year post graft was tiny, maybe a foot or 2 tall. if these grafts take, how big should I expect a newly grafted pear to get on new rootstock in its first season?
You should check with the source. I assume that a recent bench graft will be very small, maybe 1’ of rootstock trunk plus 3-6" of scion. Bare root trees that I’ve purchased (e.g., Cummins, TOA) seem to be ~2 years post-graft. Those trees are much bigger – maybe 4’ with serious branching.
Edit – My answer was incomplete, focusing on the initial size. To complete, I’d expect 4-5’ of growth, assuming that you suppress branching to focus growth in the central leader.
Hey Mike, my pear grafts last year on OHXF97, grew 4~6 foot the first year. Eventhough cicadas did their fair share of damage. I set them out in their final location a few weeks after the grafts took in early spring. I mulched them in well with old hay, pruned suckers and side growth for centeral leader and I baby sat them with 5 gallon buckets of water. I dont expect to water them that much this year since they are pretty much established now. But I just watered a bunch of peaches and apples, I have in pots that I haven’t set out yet. I suspect grow bags are pretty much like pots but IDK becuase i’ve never used them before.
Yeah. You can get appreciable size even in 3 gallon bags. I had quite a few top 6 foot on first year grafts in bags. Some on dwarfing P.2. My only thing with bags is it does take more watering.
I have tried both putting them into nursery beds to be planted the following year, and putting them into pots with a 50%soil and 50% potting mix blend. Both did well, but the root systems of the trees grown in nursery beds was clearly better in my case. The added benefit was less roots circling into one another and making a tangled mess.
If you can manage hauling water then in ground is certainly better.
If you are only doing a few trees you can do whatever so long as you can maintain them.
I did 50 grafts last year and I kept them in 3 gallon bags until fall when I loosely buried them for the winter in a trench. I’ll plant them this spring. I found it a lot easier to water/maintain them in a little nursery (packed together) than it would have been to fence them to protect them from deer, lay out irrigation and wrap them to protect them from rabbits. To say nothing of the 50 holes. All away from the house.
I don’t think it set them back at all and it allowed me to spread out the work.
You can always dig them up if you change your mind about where you want them.
Those of you who said they would grow a lot in the first year weren’t kidding
At first they all shot up in growth about a foot then stopped. I noticed the leaves were bumpy and found they had an aphid infestation. 2-3 days of coating the leaves in insecticidal soap in the AM seemed to do the trick and they began growing again.
My Korean Giant on OHxF 333 topped out at about 4 feet but I think maybe a deer tipped a month or so back and I didn’t notice it because about a week ago the top apical bud was really wide and began growing again.
My honey Asian on OHxF 333 is about 55-56 inches tall but I noticed some of the lower leaves have some chlorosis so maybe it needs some nitrogen
My Ayers on Provence quince is over 6 feet tall at this point with an additional shoot about 4-5 feet tall (I didn’t measure that one) that I’m 99% sure is above the graft line, but still covered by wax so hard to tell conclusively. the leaves are smaller then my other 2 pear trees but the growth is insane.
They all have some minor insect damage on the leaves, but seem very strong overall.
When they go dormant I’ll cut the grow bags and plant them in ground. I’ll likely prune out that secondary shoot on the Ayers to keep them all to a central leader in hopes of getting them above the majority of the deer browse.
Can’t wait to order more custom benchgrafts from @39thparallel this fall.
