Winters, fireblight, drought, deer, rabbits etc. All make quince a poor choice in my area. Have spent many thousands of dollars on experimental rootstocks through the years.
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I assume that if you planted it deep it would help for both FB and extreme cold. All dwarfing rootstocks tend to be a problem when dry farming in areas prone to drought. Even in NYS commercial growers are encouraged to set up irrigation as part of the installation process for dwarf apple production.
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Totally agree dwarfs need watered unless someone lives in an area with constant rainfall. In that case, pears will be very poor quality. This is how many pear orchards are set up. Many people think experts use dwarfing rootstocks. It is not always true. Most trees in the video above were not dwarfs but were pruned to 12 feet. Many people grow pears few grow pears right. The tasteless pears from the store are victims of too much water. Improving Irrigation Efficiency in Pears – Case Studies | WSU Tree Fruit | Washington State University
pearnc062-r.pdf (681.8 KB)
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Good to know. With the weather and winter temp swings of late, I guess maybe I’m glad I didn’t go with quince.
Actually, KG has been super easy on 333 for me so far: precocious and plenty vigorous for my purposes. It was other trees that I had the trouble with.
I wasn’t aware of that in the early years, and more recently the trees have largely grown out of that problem, but I plan on doing the oil in the future. (I could certainly be wrong, but my problem did appear to be classic blister mites.)
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Yeah, I mentioned KG because I thought it was the one good choice for your purposes but also that it would even have worked as well on a more vigorous root stock. I have no experience growing it on 333 and none of my comments were related specifically to it.
I also didn’t intend to suggest that blister mites couldn’t be a problem of great magnitude in your location, only that it’s been a mild problem here on more vigorous rootstocks. Psyla has been a bitch, but not at every site I manage… just maybe half of them.
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When my pear tree come into production, we will see the quality. I don’t think that a commercial orchard with 50+ year old trees in a different climate has much to do with my home orchard. The claim of 15-year longevity is anecdotal at best. These guys may produce 2/3 of the U.S. pears, but 3/4 of the U.S. pears are pretty, but lacking flavor. They give lip service to caring about the eating quality while the cameras are rolling, but their practices tell a completely different story. Like most commercial growers, they care about big beautiful fruit that commands a high market price. When the U.S. begins to include Brix measurements in their grading system, I will listen to what the “professionals” say.
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The pears here at my location are frequently very good because our summers are hot and dry. It brings the brix content way up. The red delicious apple from the grocery store is the most disappointing fruit i’ve ever eaten. We know what you’re saying can be accurate about producers , that it is frequently about getting the pounds of production, and the quality is strictly second rate. Too much water ruins pears or any other fruit. @fruitnut has discussed this as well many times. I dont think a small orchard will have pear decline issues unless psylla are a big problem. Interesting they said ohxf87 was susceptible to pear decline but this article contradicts that
Pear Decline / Pear / Agriculture: Pest Management Guidelines / UC Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM).
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No worries, Alan, I understood what you were saying. I think I had read somewhere that 333 wasn’t necessarily recommended for Asian pears, but that was the rootstock I had, so I decided to wing it and so far it’s worked out ok. (Fruit size was smallish last year, which I understand can be an issue with 333, but it was a droughty year and the first year fruiting, so I’ll see how it works out from here.)
The thing that I’m most concerned about is fireblight. I had what looked like a few hits of that on the KG last year, but they all appeared to kind of cork off before getting into the scaffolds. But some of my Euro pears have a reputation for being more susceptible, so if that’s going to be a problem I may need to be very careful about when I do my summer pruning or potentially even graft over to more resistant varieties. But we’ll see.
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It does not rain during our Summer. If it does, it is usually not enough to wet our soil. We also have silt soil, low humidity, cool nights in upper 50s, and long Summer days. In most years there is good daytime heat and relatively little cloud cover. We are at the top of a hill with good drainage and elevation ~410’.
There are a number of semi-dwarf pears in my neighborhood that produce well with no care at all. They don’t spray, prune, or harvest. I don’t think it is coincidence that the main road that runs by our house is called “Orchard Street”.
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I have had mixed results on callery so I can see why some would avoid it entirely even without the invasive species list. I had a Comice and 2 Warren on Callery 1 from edible landscaping and the Comice from Nature Hills. 1 Warren is small and has had zero issues. The others seemed to have some kind of issue because it turned black. The Comice on my callery rootstock from Naturehills died in its first winter. The rootstock lived on but the Comice pear was dead as a doorknob. I did a scratch test on it today and it was brown as far as you could dig. I have a Magness and Warren still from Edible Landscaping and those seem to be doing wonderful. I have a standard Seckle from Stark Bros so it could be any kind of rootstock but I have noticed it does well and has no suckering issues. My trees on OHxF 87 have no issues so far.
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I have no practical knowledge to bear on the subject of pear on quince, but I strongly suspect that any lack of hardiness is related to the use of only 2 or 3 clonal quince rootstocks.
I’ve grown a clone of quince here given to me by an neighbor whose parents brought a sucker of their tree when they moved up from CT in the 1940’s. I’m not sure, but I believe it to be a seedling variety ‘Orange’. There are other ones I’ve found at old homesteads here. These seem quite hardy and well adapted to our climate. If I were to fool around with pear on quince, I’d stick to one of these over some French selection untested here.
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Yeah, you guys are in the fruit bowl of the continental US for sure @nil As long as you can irrigate, you’ve got so much less disease pressure to worry about than us poor right coasters
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It is pretty good, but the two issues I face are a somewhat shorter season and Winter disease issues. I do not believe I have seen fire blight here yet, but I have dealt with a number of bacterial and fungal issues. The problems usually don’t last beyond May.
I will be mixing up some lime sulfur this year and will add it to my arsenal. I have not been doing dormant oil either.
The Varieties I am growing are Bosc and Russet Comice (Taylor’s Gold). So far, Comice is the problem child, with Bosc showing no signs of disease so far.
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Yes, I’ve often wondered about the benefit of only pruning pears after FB season and you can manage espaliers with only doing it in the summer. I’ve never seen any research on it which is weird. I believe cherries are often managed exclusively with summer pruning in humid regions to avoid risk of canker.
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Here we (should) only prune prunus species (plum cherry etc) between may and aug-sept. Because of risk from silver leaf.
During summer the risk of infection from that is really low. Especially if there’s dry weather. But in the fall or winter it easily infects pruning wounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrostereum_purpureumb
That disease was a major problem here years ago in commercial plum cultivation. Until the growers switched from winter to summer pruning.
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I planted an Orient pear one year. I looked at the website the next year and saw that I bought it on a callery rootstock. Since the callery trees have overtaken just about all the roadways and fields here I took it out. I bought three different pears all on OHXF 97 rootstocks. Now I wonder how long they will last with knowing your information as to the OHXF87 only gives actual full production for only 15 years. The things you learn afterwords, ugggg.
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I question that is true at all about ohxf87 anywhere outside of heavy pear production areas. Most people could get 20+ years out of their rootstock. If you watch the video listen to them discuss it. Don’t you think 99% of your neighbors pears are also on callery roots? My new rootstocks are all BET but i have acres of ohxf and callery roots. Less than half of my pears are any one rootstock. I’m very diversified having tried all rootstocks. My rootstocks no matter which ones i planted i found were never perfect.
https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/pear-rootstocks/
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Functional lifespan of the tree is not only rootstock dependent. But also on climate/care
Where i live we get 25+ years out of quince rootstock. And even more out of Pyrus rootstocks.
But here the climate etc is more suitable to easily grow pears.
Where clarkinks is. It’s harder to grow pears. That’s one of the reasons OHxF rootstocks fruit for 15 years there.
If your area is more suited to easily grow pears. You will likely get many more years out of your trees.
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Actually i dont have a big psylla problem as they do in the video. In the video they discuss pear decline and other problems. This is a marginal area but pears can live here 100 years on a good rootstock. It is not as ideal as the area where you are oscar. Quince rootstock was mostly dead the first year here.
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