Interstem aka interstock Pear Grafting

[Shibumi]

No, i never did give it a try

[ZombieFruit]

I have some 1-3 year old interstems with callery pear to Yates apple (to other apple varieties), as well as cellery pear to medlar. So far, so good. I hope to add some serviceberry to the mix in the future.

[Auburn]

My opinion is that there are many other varieties of apple that is as compatible as the old standby Winter Banana. I currently only have 1 interstem combination and it is about 3 years old and looks good. The combination is an Unknown Asian/Bud 9/Bastian Orange.

[Trav]

@Auburn

Unknown Asian/Bud 9/Bastian Orange

Is that Asian pear, or some asian malus like Chinese/Siberian/toringo crabapple?

[Trav]

If by “Asian pear rootstock” you mean Callery pear, then I have an answer for you. All tested varieties of apples work on Callery pear seedlings (likely Bradford pear x Clapp’s favorite or other European pears). More details here:

Apple-Pear Frankentree on Callery or Bradford pear seedling

Interestingly on both side branches one graft reached the full diameter of the branch and the other graft turned into a smaller forking branch, and one was apple and one was Asian pear in each case, probably the same Asian pear, but I took those cuttings pruning from my dad’s friend’s trees that lost their labels years ago, probably not Hosui, I kept better track of that one, it’s the one that always immediately turned black and died of fireblight. The big Apple is Winter Banana, and the …

[Auburn]

It’s Asian. I bought it well before I started keeping good records.

[Auburn]

@Trav

All tested varieties of apples work on Callery pear seedlings

Thanks. I haven’t tried grafting directly onto callery.

[Trav]

Seems like a shame to graft over an Asian Pear to apples, if you don’t like your variety of Asian pears I can send you scions of Olympic/Korean Giant, Raja, and 2 probably 3 more of my dad’s friend’s ones, but the labels on those were lost, so I can only guess at what is what on the others.

Raja and Korean Giant are great though.

[Auburn]

Thanks for your generous scion offer. I have some European pears but the Asian pears have been my most productive types for a few years now. Korean Giant and Dripping Honey have performed well for me in central Alabama. I recently grafted Shinko and Turnbull and I think these will do well also. I’m limited on space so I have to be careful about adding more trees. I mostly add limbs of new varieties. I probably won’t add any more varieties this year but if I have any that you don’t have and want let me know and I’ll send you some scions. Thanks, Bill