Interesting, I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, of course. I’m seeing more variation in size of the fruit on feral one’s than in years past.
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For dwarfing European trees on betulafolia… I’ve got an idea.
What if, you were growing a modified central leader tree, and the trunk of the tree, and maybe necessarily the first branch were Asian pear to make the tree dwarf from being precocious, and then the top were whatever European pear you wanted?
I bet that would work!
Also it could be Callery or a different extremely vigorous rootstock, dwarfing, precocious, good anchorage, sounds like a win win!
Interstems of various kinds are used on pears. Ohx333 is a dwarfing rootstock. The thing about BET most people dont know if you reduce the top drastically it becomes aggressive and begins to sucker around the base. Slowing down the top is possible in many ways but know the pear wont take it lying down.
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All the Asian pears here are on betulafolia, even the one planted 25 years ago.
Wait? What? We were just talking about getting some wild pears my wife’s father gathered from an island on the Satilla River. And they are invasive? These little pears are wonderful. Callery’s by the sound of it. They have grown them since the 1930’s on 3 trees. Now 2 left.
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I’m sure they aren’t callery if they are edible. They could be hybrids of some sort, but the standard calleryana are tiny nasty things
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Callery are usually olive colored, about the size of a pea, and sour, but also, usually, rather bitter.
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These are about the size of a stress ball and very tender and sweet, though the skin is roughly sandy russetted. Also they have been on the same spot and have not formed a thicket after many decades. Maybe they are hybrids.
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