Hypothetical Hybrids

General Fruit Growing
#1

I (and others) have posted here before about the recently performed and previously thought impossible graft of a pomegranate upon a crape myrtle. There is also the history of the diospyros kaki x virginiana hybrid (thought to be hybrid incompatible until they were cross-grafted then cross-pollinated).

Can the collective mind of growing fruit come up with other hybrids?

The idea is anything from the same family (or at least genus) grafted onto the rootstock of it’s “cousin” then vice-versa and then cross-pollinated. It’s supposed to help with ploidy issues.

Possibilities: pistachioxsumac, citrusxzanthoxyllum, hardyxfuzzy kiwifruit (in progress), che/mulberry/figxosage orange, purple passionfruitxmaypop, texas black persimmonxasian persimmon (I’m attempting this), rosexrubus, honeyberryxhoneysuckle, etc.

Any others you can think of let me hear them. I’ve hopefully got 30-40 growing years left to do something crazy.

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#2

How about Psidium guajava x P. longipetiolatum or x P. cattleyanum? I don’t believe they are capable of cross-pollination, but who knows! Could be interesting if you have a spare greenhouse for them.

As far as testing believed-to-be-impossible grafting, I’m trying a Persea americana var. drymifolia (Mexican race avocado) scion on my Umbellularia californica (California bay laurel) tree, even though it was tested for graft compatibility with commercial avocado cultivars in the 60s/70s and determined to be incompatible. Would be an interesting hybrid if those could cross!

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#3

I also want to see what myrtle crosses are possible. . . if Pomegranate can grafted onto crape myrtle, why not dedicate a branch to another Myrtaceae - Wikipedia. I’m attempting luma in a direct cleft right now and will try chilean guava again when I can (probably failures but what the heck).

If I had unlimited greenhouse space I’d definitely be trying black sapote (diospyros nigra)xasian persimmon as they have already been found to be graft compatible by floridafruitgeek. Very frost tender though, so impossible in 7b :-/.

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#4

I have several crosses of Oregon Grape and barberry. There must be more possibilities there.
I bought mine…didn’t breed them.

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#5

Has anyone ever attempted currant crosses (especially clove and black)?

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#6

I have both pear (Pyrus) and Quince (Cydonia) growing on hawthorn (Crataegus) rootstock for nearly 20 years.
Pear x mountain ash/rowan (Sorbus) and Pear X Aronia hybrids are a known thing. Don’t recall having seen hybrids of pear or quince with hawthorn, though.

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#7

Hey Lucky, I have been wondering about pear on Hawthorn. Do you have any pictures? How tall is your pear/Hawthorn tree? Which pear cultivar(s) ?

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#8

Lost the ID, but I’m pretty sure it’s either Mooers or Hoskins pear on cockspur hawthorn(C.crus-galli); grafted in 2001, or thereabouts; tree is about 8 ft tall. Has fruited, but not consistently or heavily, so it’s dwarfing, as was my experience with Ubileen on hawthorn, grafted at the same time, but removed 5 years or so later to make room for other stuff.

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Photo of graft union, taken Spring 2020.
This one has had NO care since I grafted it. It’s growing, in close proximity to several mayhaws, also on C.crus-galli understocks dug out of my cowpasture, and an encroaching thicket of Chickasaw plums, in a formerly boggy spot that used to receive spill-off from the neighbor’s poorly-perc-ing septic system.

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#9

Cool! Thanks so much for the picture and information @Lucky_P . Not sure if I want to try this or not. I want to put in a few more pears in an area that has power lines running overhead. Rather than strictly pruning to keep pears manageable and safe size, I am looking into hawthorn or cotoneaster as rootstock.
I need to do some more research regarding cultivars likely to succeed on both of those rootstocks.
Thanks!

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#10

Good luck. I did mine just to be playing around… and to see if it could be done.
I suspect that if the variety is known to be quince-compatible, there’s a chance that it’ll work on hawthorn… but that’s only a guess, and it may be totally incorrect. I kinda think you’d have to just ‘trial-and-error’ your way through figuring out those compatibilities.
But, for folks like our friend Yarg, who have lots of hawthorn growing on their property as a native, it’s a potential rootstock for grafting onto for soft mast production for wildlife… if they’re productive enough to make it worthwhile.

20 years out, I don’t recall what graft technique I used… was either a graft bark, or may have been a cleft graft - hawthorn bark is REALLY thin, and doesn’t ‘slip’ nearly as nicely as any of the fruit/nut species I typically work with. Regardless, it seems that, other than the difference in trunk size, the two species are ‘happy’ with the graft… there’s been absolutely no suckering from below the graft.

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#11

Interesting… The larger diameter of the pear trunk apparently isn’t an issue. I would have thought that it might make the graft union weak if the grafted variety ends up being much greater in diameter than the rootstock. 20 years old and looking good!

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#12

So through just these few responses we know the following families are at least somewhat hybrid compatible:

Myrtales (contains: pomegranate, chilean guava, crape myrtle, luma, mangrove apples, syzygiums, eucalypts, feijoas, guavas, allspice, clove, )
Berberidaceae (contains: oregon grape, mahonia, barberry, )
Rosaceae (contains: apples, pears, quince, apricots, plums, cherries, peaches, raspberries, loquats, strawberries, rose hips, almonds, roses, firethorns, hawthorns, mayhaws, aronia, )

Other fruit families
Anacardiaceae (contains: cashews, pistachios, mango, marula, sumac, )
Annonaceae (contains: pawpaw, soursop, ylang ylang, custard apple, atemoya, cherimoya, )
Clusiaceae (contains: Mangosteen, other garcinias, )
Solanaceae (contains: nightshade, tomatoes, lulo, tamarillo, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, gooseberries, wolfberries [goji], tobacco, petunia, )
Fabaceae (contains: ice cream bean, licorice, kudzu, black locust, tamarind, honey locust, )
Rutaceae (contains: citrus, white sapote, sichuan pepper, )
Actinidiaceae (contains: kiwifruit, hardy kiwifruit, arctic kiwifruit, silver vine, )
Grossulariaceae (contains: gooseberries, currants )
Cucurbitaceae (contains: melons, gourds, squashes, )
Lauraceae (contains: bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, )
Malvaceae (contains: cocoa, okra, mallow, durian, )
Moraceae (contains: fig, mulberry, che, osage orange, breadfruit, jackfruit, )

That may be all the easily accessible ones

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#13

For Lauraceae I’d say the most interesting ones other than avocado are the bay laurels, swamp bays, and of course cinnamon. There are many poorly studied species in Persea besides avocado, I bet some could be crossed with avocados, though one of the more promising in terms of tree appearance and hardiness, the swamp bay (Persea palustris), is believed to be incompatible.

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#14

I’d love a persistent woody solanaceae or cucurbitaceae. There are many cold hardy laurels that could impart traits into avocado but the breeding would require a greenhouse and/or stored pollen. I mean the shipping on pollen is cheap and we have tons of users here that have avocado trees.

An annual cocoa crossed with okra would be something.

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#15

@Lucky_P - I used to think there was no exchange between rootstock and scion; until I recently read an article about Japanese persimmon roostocks. I think @Chonas you’ll find this article fascinating, also.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/hortj/88/1/88_UTD-020/_html/-char/en

It’s my understanding, each tree has their separate life meaning the rootstock is there to live as long a life as it can (hopefully thru educated choice at planting time) & the tree you’re growing is its’ own organism. There is no exchange of hardiness; no exchange of pests - tolerances, no, no-nothing. Then I read that article and the Japanese have produced a rootstock that stops (at least one cultivar - from what I read/understood a while ago) the growing height of the cultivar and it branches only sideways, after. Therefore I know there’s a transference of something now.

I bring this up partly because grafting on differing ploidy has nothing to do with the hybrids created, …because there is no “double” ploidy happening. The only-thing happening is the exchange of pollen with the ploidy of (1) tree and the acceptance from the same (or different) species having a different ploidy that I’ll label as tree (2).

Lucky, you would know, have you ever heard of any transference of anything from rootstock to scion? As well as anyone I know, anyways…

Dax

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#16

just going to leave this here…

Of course I’ve never seen one. Heck, I’ve never even seen one for sale online (though I haven’t looked too much).

It is supposedly a “graft-hybrid” or chimera. I wonder if using Winter Banana to top-work pears on an apple is a similar happening…

Evidently there is a hawthorn/medlar graft hybrid as well…

Here’s the best picture…surely photo-shopped…

Scott

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#17

I believe it’s quince rootstock that will give dwarf pears.
Or OhxF 333.

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#18

Great ideas yall! Im planning to dedicate some plots to grow out a bunch of seeds when i get my trees established, of hybrid persimmon, hybrid citrus, hardy pomegranite… I want to grow all those seeds!!!..
But… here is my idea been chewing on for a year: Che pollinated to Osage Orange: a che/osage hybrid… make osage orange balls edible perhaps tasty! (when ripe some osage are semi-edible already, ive tested them).

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#19

one greeen world sells a bunch of moutain ash crosses with pear, hawthorn and aronia. the pear one is called shipova. i have it grafted onto aronia rootstook. got it from cricket hill nursery in ct.

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#20

i have 4 cultivars of pears growing on mountain ash. they are very hardy and i have voulenteers coming up all over the yard. if you would like a few to try to graft to let me know. i can dig some for you.

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