Choosing Varieties to Graft to Improve Pollination

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A variety should produce pollen, i.e. not be pollen sterile.

A variety should flower in the same time period as the variety to be pollinated.

If you want fruit from the pollinator, it should either be self-fertile or compatible with another variety.

If significant disease pressure is present in your climate, it should be resistant to that disease.

A graft compatible variety should be chosen since you plan to graft on existing trees.

Using Honeysweet as an example, it produces pollen and is self-fertile and is known compatible with Comice and Bartlett. Honeysweet has some tolerance to fireblight.

Honeysweet pear

Who grows the honeysweet pear? Cummins says this about it "Honeysweet is a great choice it you only have room for one pear. It is a spreading and precocious tree that will bear in four-six years. It is somewhat resistant to fireblight (strikes typically cork-off in wood that is one or two years old), and it is self-fertile. Cropping will, however, be improved by the presence of a pollenizer. The pollen is fertile. The fruit is large and turbinate, and it ripens shortly after Bartlett. The skin…

Of the other varieties I listed, several are self-sterile but produce pollen which can fertilize other varieties. Some may be pollen sterile meaning they don’t produce viable pollen. Do due diligence.