Planning to graft four scions onto my orient pear: moon glow, Ayers, hosui, and Korean giant.
My orient is pretty large and the scions are fairly small. What is the best graft to use? I’ve successfully done a whip and tongue, but the scions are too small. I was thinking a cleft graft.
Also, should I go ahead and do it now? I’m in DFW, so we are about 6 weeks before last frost.
Thanks!
Good choice with cleft.
Like Bill says- a cleft is a good choice.
As for the when part I wait until the leaves are unfolding, and then within a month, but pears are pretty tolerant and will callous over a wide range of temperatures and seem to heal quickly, so you have some breathing room.
You might post a photo of the tree and where you intend to graft or may just a little more description. Is the scion pencil sized? How big is the branch where you intend to graft?
How large is your orient pear trees? What do you want to do with your pear trees? You want to cut off the whole tree and change to a new variety or just want to add to a variety to the tree?
Pear is super easy to graft. Bark graft, cleft graft, or bud graft can all work.
It is up to you.
Here’s a pic of my tree from two sides. It’s an 8-9 year old tree. I’m not particularly in love with the orient pears, but I’m kinda scared to change it over completely. I definitely want 4 major limbs to be the new varieties, so I’m thinking that a pretty major whacking will be needed.
I would take the center out then any branches crossing, or pointing inwards or downwards. Then graft to the ends of the rest of the branches. You don’t have to try and do it all at once. Just take your time and have fun! As for what types of grafts you should do depends on your skill level. Grafting tools work the easiest and good ones can be bought for under $30. Cleft grafts are the next easiest and then splice or whip and tongue. I wouldn’t wack the whole thing down and try to change it all at once. You can kill a tree by doing that If you have a cold winter afterwords that has big swings in temps. You’ll enjoy grafting so change a little each year and keep pruning the inward, downward and crossing branches. Have fun!
I’ve done it that way too. I got good growth but the following winter was that really cold year about six years ago and my tree died the next spring. My bark popped and split on the trunk. This probably works better for warmer zones than mine which is 6, but with my micro climate probably closer to 5. It wasn’t just the tree I grafted either. There was other trees that had the same thing happen to them in my area. I just felt like I set my tree up to be with the vulnerable ones that did die that year.
Thank you for the photo! When you graft two scions to each branch, like you did on your friends tree, do you keep both scions as they grow out? Or, do you choose the stronger scion as they grow out and only keep one?
I did cleft graft in flowering time last year. I will keep the strong one and cut the weak one. Each branch will just keep one.
Thank you all for answering my questions and being encouraging!!
I showed the pic of the grafted tree to my husband and he gasped. I told him that I wanted to regraft our pear, but I don’t think he anticipated such a big change. He’s on board though, so we can get better fruit.
