I’ve brought it up many times that fireblight kills trees to the roots here. If they are ohxf that is the end of them usually. The larger length of rootstock you have the more likely you are to be able to reuse the roots. Last year a clapps favorite was killed by fireblight. My trick of leaving several feet of callery trunk will prevent me from losing the roots. In time i learned the hard way. The scion part of the tree is dead but look at that trunk! Losing 15 years of roots would really hurt and i know that first hand.
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In my area (Central Europe) when you see old trees in open orchards, forest farms or along roads most are grafted on seedlings at elbow height or even shoulder height. Not sure about fireblight, but deer and often deep snow or frost damage were some of the factors.
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Yes all the ancients did it that way like i do. Take a look at this thread Napoleon’s army planted pear trees fact or fiction?
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For me I have to graft 5-6 foot high or fence it. Otherwise deer will destroy it. Had not considered the FB aspect, but that makes sense.
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I am grafting at over five feet these days to get above the deer. For fireblight where I am the damage is never low down so these high grafts don’t help with that though. The only way I get fireblight lower is if there are sprouts there that I didn’t prune off. If they get infected it is easy to lose the whole tree.
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