Great info, Bambooman and Auburn!
John S
PDX OR
Wild callery is very different wood from a true Bradford. Bradford pears are not fun to graft in my experience and the wood is very soft.
That’s good to know. I’ve never grafted a true Bradford just their thorny cousins grown specifically for rootstock.
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The true Bradford has bark that slips a little to easy so much so it peels away when your trying to rind or cleft graft it. The wood itself is weak and light like poplar. It’s not any thing I want to work with. The first storm that comes along breaks every branch. It’s short lived and gets fire blight easy .They get very tall.The seedlings are nice trees.
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I grafted several hundred pears all onto Callery. With a repetitive tasks such as this, small differences in wood density become obvious. I strongly believe Callery is the best full sized choice for a large portion of America.
I have been toying around with quince as rootstock, which does have some benefits. I even thought of using a full sized understock with a quince interstem, then partially bury this quince interstem. You have the benefits of a precocious pear that has more tolerance to challenging conditions than a quince rootstock. I know… there are compatibility (and other) issues with quince.
Sorry to get off topic.
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I could talk pear rootstocks the next 10 years and there are pros and cons to each ranging from Cotton Easter, Aronia, quince, Hawthorne, ohxf, callery , harbin ,etc… The size of fruit , tree , graft compatibility, years to bear fruit all make a difference. My favorite today is Pyrus betulaefolia or Pyrus calleryana until I age then I will post about being a big dummy when I try and pick pears!
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I don’t dare bring up some of the pear topics again lol but here are a few Search results for 'Pear rootstocks' - Growing Fruit. Like open pollinated corn vs. hybrid I wonder about rootstock impact on nutrients etc. of the fruit Open Pollinated corn, better and more profitable than Hybrids? - Heritage Breed Farms. Every rootstock we use has an influence of some type on the fruit. This year I picked pears when my neighbors had none because of my choice of rootstocks. I spent more time looking at dirt and rootstocks than what the scion is doing. Clover, worms, mycelium, etc. are all amazingly important and that rootstock is key to extracting nutrients from things that later turn into fruitlets. It’s amazingly complex and important and yet completely overlooked . My pears do well because I pay attention to rootstocks and other details. Water and many other things are equally important.
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There is some great information in this thread. Thanks to those who have contributed. I am considering grafting 20th Century Asian Pear onto Bartlett this Spring. Does anyone have experience with the comparability between those 2 varieties? Is it worth a shot?
Asian pears are commonly grafted onto ohxf 87 and 97, a bartlett type pear, so it should work fine. Maybe not as good as betulifolia according to some, but it’s done a lot.
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I didn’t graft asian pear on European pear, but I bought a multigrafted asian pears that grafted on Bartlett pear or similar root stock. It has been 8~9 years now,only grows about 5’~. Very dwarfed
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This is very good to know. I’d imagine such a small tree might not be as productive as one would like. I have some different Asian pears grafted on various Euro rootstocks and they show varying vigor. Some are very vigorous while others grow much slower.
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It doesn’t grow a lot ,so can’t say productive.it seems a lot of fruits for a such small tree to bear. However one branch is from rootstock which grows more vigorous than the rest. I think this branch was left there for pollination
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I ordered a Korean Giant on OHxF97 last year and at planting chopped off the top of tree and grafted a piece of that to my Moonglow. Had to experiment. Graft took and put on about 2 ft of growth. Can’t say the same about KG tree that was planted. It was stunted for some reason and only grew about inches entire season. Don’t know about the long term compatibility of the graft but it sure grew better than KG tree last year.
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Ok! Thanks for the feedback, sounds like it’s worth giving it a go. I didn’t know that OHxF was similar to Bartlett. Good to know.
I have a couple of super vigorous Charles Harris (Asian) pears growing in ground. @clarkinks & @beachwreck , in another thread I read that you both are growing this pear.
I need a place to back up a few Euro pear grafts. Have you or others experienced incompatibilities with putting Euros on Charles Harris?
These are the pears I want to try on CH:
Clara Frijs
Docteur Desportes
Doyenne duComice
Fondante de Moulins Lille
I wondered if anyone has been grafting Euros onto CH.
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I’ve not tried it intentionally because charles harris is very vigorous. I susoect it would out grow whatever was grafted to it so pruning would be required
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Thanks Clark!
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Anyone know if pear will take on flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp)? I’ll probably give it a try regardless, but I’m curious if anyone else has tried this.
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This paper mentioned that Chaenomeles is used as rootstock but you have to use Cydonia between it and the pear.
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