I forgot to mention I also have 20th Century Pear! Thoughts?
I have 20th for several years. It produces a small, yellow, thin-skinned pears. The taste is juicy and mildly sweet. It needs serious thinning like 70-80% of fruitlets off, to get it to size up (by not much)…
It also has a tendency to go biennial if not thinning enough. I thought I thinned aggressively. It is not enough. My 20th century fruits every other year. The tree has a nice form. I am working on grafting it over to many other varieties.
The mistake I made about this tree is planting it behind a taller Korean Giant. It does not get as much sun as KG. That’s could be why the fruit quality is not as good.
If you have a good sun location for 20th Century, you may have a better result. But thin, thin, thin; otherwise, you will get fruit every other year like I do.
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My trees need 90+% taken off. 80% off is still twice the number of 90%. Then you can get decent size and they’ll bear every yr. I seriously hate thinning Asian pears.
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I like 20th Century more than Yoinashi (which isn’t bad). Further, with it being yellow and a different flavor profile, it gives some variety. I think the skin is a bit thinner and less noticeable than many Asian pears. I would put it just after the top 3 on the list.
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Fruitnut,
I started to hate thinning now. Since my 20th C, Honey Crisp and William’s Pride went biennial last year, this year they are all loaded. Thin, thin, thin.
I had shinseiki I believe, which was an offspring of 20th century, and I can attest to the fact that it at least was a very mild but juicy pear, and as mamuang said, it is perfectly happy to load an entire branch with fruits it prefers to set at about golf ball size. It needed terrible thinning, although I love the pear
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My rootstocks arrive tomorrow from Raintree. I have 3 OHxF87, as well as 5 St Julians, so i can put a pic (and some measurements) up so you can know what to expect.
You don’t have much to lose by grafting now. If it doesn’t take, you can let the rootstock grow and you aren’t really worse off than not grafting to it. But pears are pretty forgiving, so go for it!
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They arrived and the pears ranged from 5/16" to 6/16". But for thinner wood, you can move higher up.
Box:
Closeup (the 3 OHxF 87 are on the right, next to the ruler):
Some of the St Julian are larger- up to 7/16".
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Bob,
Will you graft them and pot up or graft them and plant in ground. Mine won’t be here until May 10.
Thanks Bob. Looks like a nice size. Mine will be here Monday. I will pot mine up for fall or next spring planting.
I’ll pot them up, while they grow and wait for their eventual home. I lose so many peaches to borer and apricots to spring frosts that it’s good to have a ready source to plug in.
And the pears will probably be for rentals. I don’t have any spots now, but I’m suspect that will change. I’ll probably do Hamese (early Asian pear, got scionwood from Raintree), Korean Giant, and Belle Lucrative or Harrow Sweet. Reason to use BL vs HS is that BL is a new variety for me, so putting it here is a bit of a backup graft.
I ordered quite a while ago, back in mid February, so that may be why they shipped to me first.
When potting up the rootstocks I had a thought- at least 2 of the pears could make multi-grafts, due to the Y shape.
Some of the St Julian look pretty good, but the one on the left looks like it got its roots trimmed a bit too much.
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I have an ohxf 87 with a Y like that , I put two Altoona grafts on it and it looks like both are going to take. My question, since you are looking at doing the same thing , is what is your long term plan with the fork? How would you grow the tree to make them both work? Mine are the same variety so I just planned to cut one off but I might want to put another variety on that fork next year if I could understand how to make it work
A couple options:
1.) Two leaders. Hopefully divide up the vigor and make each one not shoot for the sky quite as fast.
2.) Espalier fan. I have a few pears that I did this with a year or two ago and now I’m grafting 3rd varieties on each, as one of the two leaders sent up a branch in the middle. I have not idea how viable this will be in the long term, but it seems like a neat thing to try.
For those I plant in my yard, I’d probably go with #2. If I plant it at a rental, #1 sounds fine.
Two on one also gives me a built in pollination partner. Not important in my yard, where there are probably 30-40 varieties, but could be good at a rental where there aren’t any pears around.
Perpendicular V is actually a recognized training method, though from what I can see, it is mostly for peaches.
https://www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/FSA-6133.pdf
I think that if you wanted to keep a single variety on the rootstock, it would have been better to put it in the straight part, before the split. Once you graft above the split, removing one side leaves it unbalanced. Granted a single graft doesn’t give you any backup for graft failures.
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Good points bob, I like the options, I have seen the fan but it hadn’t considered it for this case . I will probably graft one side over to another variety at some point. I always seem to need a spot to put something, Potomac maybe, it is on my wish list.
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Did you decide what you will put on them?
As I type I’ve put Harrow Sweet and Korean Giant. Matching wood will decide from here out. Will report back later.
Updated added Rotkottis Frau Ostergotland because I thought the red flesh would be cool as well as the name 
Magness as it is one of the recommended.
Yoinashi as it sounded good and wood fit.
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One per rootstock, or did you make a 3 (4?) in 1 from the one on the left?
I grafted my pear rootstocks tonight and did all 3 as multi-grafts:
1.) Harrow Sweet & Belle Lucrative
2.) Korean Giant & Hamese
3.) Korean Giant & Hamese
I probably would have tossed a 20th Century in there, but didn’t see the wood and figured that an extra KG is not a bad thing.
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