Which of these pear semi-dwarf rootstocks are best for early bearing, productivity, and toleration of wet, clay soil (growing zone 7a, Tenn.)??
OHxF87 vs. OHxF333 vs. Quince A
Thanks for your collective wisdom from experience!
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I don’t have pears on Quince, but I think it’s dwarfing rather than semi-dwarfing. My main concern with Quince would be its susceptibility to fireblight. I have Euro and Asian pears on OHxF87 and am pretty happy with them but cannot compare to other rootstocks.
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Quince A will get you to flower the quickest, but not all pears are compatible with it. I am similar area and zone. All pear rootstocks have done well in the clay for me.
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Cummins Nursery uses Quince rootstock on only those pear scions that are known to be compatible.
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thanks
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Hmmmm, I have Clapps and Winter Nelis on Quince. When does the incompatibility show up? Quince in my climate is an experiment anyway, I have both varieties on other rootstocks.
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Should have been in the first 3 years. Are you using an interstem graft?
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No, bench grafted to quince root stock from Cummins in 2018, so still early. I have Moonglow on it as well. I was aware of compatibility issues at the time, but didn’t know what varieties. I was anticipating quince wouldn’t be winter hardy here anyway (upstate New York, zone 4a), but we really haven’t had a harsh winter since they were grafted. No biggie if they fail, if the root stock survives I’ll put something else on it. The quince has actually done better than I had anticipated, so far. Thank you Clark.
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Sometimes documentation can also be wrong. I’ve stretched the limits with pears many times. I have one pear that has never gotten over 5 feet tall because the rootstock is a wild callery. The first few years the growth was cork screw like but the graft never failed and i trained it to grow up a stake after a couple of years. I believe someday i will get pears from it. It rejected the first half dozen grafts i tried finally harrow delight took.
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Clark,
Could you tell me more about your wild callery rootstock. I read somewhere where you needed to use a Kieffer or other variety interstem. I order rootstocks for our local CRFG chapter. We get calleryana seedlings and OHxF clones but I have never tried to grow calleryana from seed.
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I have a small yellow pear i now use as an interstem frequently that seems to always work as an interstem. I’m seeing a wide range of genetic differences in callery. This thread demonstrates my typical grafting methods Top working Pears weather permitting
Clapp’s Favourite on Quince A does not need a interstem
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Hi David, I bought a few Maxma-14 rootstocks at the 2019 scion exchange in Santa Rosa, and would like to buy many more this year for my tart cherry experiments. Do you remember where those Maxma-14 rootstocks came from in 2019? Will you be ordering cherry rootstocks for 2021?
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Stan,
I got the Maxma - 14 roots from Willamette Nursery in Canby, Or. Because we are not having our annual scion exchange this year, I doubt that I will order cherry. That said, we grew some myrobalan seedlings grafted to Adara the past two years. We had planned to do some cultivar compatibility trials for cherry this year but you know what happened. I’m sure if you would like to try the myro/Adara rootstocks we could dig you a few.
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They seem to be sold out of Maxma-14 this year.
That would be fantastic, thank you! I will contact you in December to arrange for a convenient time to pick them up.
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Incompatibility issue from UC Davis website:
A factor which limits the broad use of quince as a pear rootstock in the US is poor compatibility with the popular scions Bartlett and Bosc, necessitating an interstem graft with a compatible pear cultivar such as Comice or Hardy. (Elkins and DeJong 2002).
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Hi Clark,
Would it be possible to clonally propagate your best Callery rootstock selections?
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I think cloning them is possible but i have not done it yet. It does need to be done so thank you for bringing it up.
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Thanks for the info. I have been following your posts for a long time.
On your advise I bought 2 Drippin Honey trees from Gurneys. I didn’t know it when I purchased but it turns out these are on Callery rootstock. They are doing very well in the worst soil on my property. (wet clay) I planted other asian pears at the same site on ohxf87 and they all died.
I am guessing the big guys like Gurney’s clonally propagate callery but I don’t know for sure.
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