I usually summerbud/greenbud onto 1’ up to 3’ tall feral pear, have fruit in the 3rd year, usually. I have 2 larger trees I plan on cleft grafting at the 4" thick area about 5’ high. I guessed I would be getting pears in the 3rd year, maybe not? I’m in eastern KS where feral callery pear are weeds(free rootstock).
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If your grafting harrow sweet or harrow delight that is true. Some pears you graft for your heirs they can take over 20 years to produce.
Right, so back to my original question: Is it a bad idea to keep both (or perhaps 3) grafts and spread them into more of a bush/open center shape?
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Yes it can be bad because later you need to prune them to a single trunk. You only want 1 main trunk.
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Is your recommendation based on weakness, rot, bark inclusion or another reason? I realize that it is not optimal, but I may have a greater number of scions than rootstocks to work with. I have to wander around the field still and determine if there are 60 rootstocks available.
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Wow, I had Shinko and several other asians , Luscious, Warren, in 3rd to 5th year. All on smaller calleryana, hadn’t done a large pear cleft yet.
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It is all about method. Pears grow at different rates and one type of pear grows faster than another. Lets say you graft to a single trunk only use 2 scions on a cleft. If you graft to two trunks use 4 scions. If you graft to 3 main branches use 6 scions. All scions can be different pears if you want but most people would only use 3 types of pears for 3 branches. Each branch should have 1 branch left and 1 scion branch should be cut off.
This is what i mean. Clefts use 2 peices of scion. Now if you leave 3 big branches you have 6 peices of scion instead of 2. When those 2 scions grow out of the trunk or branch eventually 1 needs cut off. See above in the first posts on this thread.
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Thanks for asking @clarkinks! It went so good that it went a little bad!
The grafts grew super vigorously, and I was too timid about trimming them down to size. I was just so proud of their growth that I couldn’t bring myself to cut them essentially in half, and so some of the scions snapped off, despite me loosely tying them to a 10’ bamboo stake. The bamboo was no match for these monsters. The scions had started branching out almost immediately, and I was too afraid to cut away any of the side branches, so I was never able to really get them securely tied.
So, I had originally grafted 3 harrow sweet, 3 harrow delight, and 2 Potomac scions:
- One harrow sweet scion snapped off. No problem, there are still 2 backups.
- Two harrow delight scions snapped off. No problem, I still had one backup. On labor day, I also mega-chip grafted a bud opposite the remaining scion, to keep that side of the trunk alive, and just in case the remaining scion breaks. The mega-chip bud was a success and grew maybe 6 or so inches before going dormant.
- Both of the Potomac scions broke off!!! That’s what I’m the saddest about. They were the biggest and the most vigorous of them all, and I’m kicking myself for not cutting them back. Pride goes before the fall, I guess.
So now I’m looking for Potomac scions in my 2023 wishlist so I can try to regraft in the spring. But other than that, I’m pretty pleased with my first grafting effort, and I think it went well 
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More top working to do in 2023. Does anyone have lots to graft? I sure do!
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As i mentioned, since i did not finish top working all my rootstocks last year, i have many more to do this year. Going to start soon. Anyone have a favorite pear you think i should do more of?
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I was thinking today about checking the callery pears to see if the bark would slip. Then i said, Nah. I guess I’ll go try it tomorrow.
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@Dean my callery had small leaves forming and the bark did slip… but it had to be encouraged to do so.
This was my first time grafting pear… but i did a mulberry last year when it was first showing green in the buds… and the bark on it slipped easily… compared to the callery yesterday.
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Was picky on my scion wood this year, using only what i have had luck with so far.
Question on my keiffer graft to callery … the one above with 2 keiffer scions bark grafted to callery. Those buds are breaking thru parafilm now and I am wondering what next ?
If both scions take and two buds on each scion grow 4 ft this summer.
Do i just support them, stake and tie, protect from birds (provide a bird perch).
Do i leave both scions and all shoots or do i perhaps cut off the weaker scion after seeing which one is growing best (late summer) ?
Just wondering after a successful graft like that
(2 scions on a 2 inch callery stump) what else do i need to do to ensure success ?
Thanks
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There is absolutely no reason to hurry cutting one of them. They both help heal that large scar of a stump. (Typically in a case such as this…I’l graft nothing to it this year, and mid-summer remove half or more of the sprouts…then NEXT spring graft to several of the shoots and remove the others.
I just did this putting 8 varieties on one tree Sunday.
(One other thought…those buds just above the trunk of the callery are facing out…next spring you could ‘top’ both right above those buds, and have a double trunk, or an ‘espalier’ if you so chose!)
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@BlueBerry … thanks…
A friend here sent me orient pear scions as well…
I grafted keiffer and improved keiffer to my two callery transplants (out in my field). They are looking good so far.
I grafted orient onto 3 other callery that are growing in other locations here, roadside or edge of my field. Hopefully those take and i will be able to collect scions from them this next winter for grafting onto my two keiffer trees out in my field… next spring.
I am not really interested in having lots of varieties at this point… keiffer and orient will do for now.
I mostly need to get pears growing that can survive fire blight.
Hope these do.
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