We know the answer is yes but how and why? We can bend branches or partially girdle a tree to cause it stress to encourage it to fruit faster but are there other ways? I’ve been experimenting with callery for a number of years and certain rootstocks cause faster fruiting than others. This is good to know that with the use of an interstem we can get a pear to fruit faster. Can we use other interstems to get pears to fruit faster? Years ago I grafted quince to pears in an attempt to experiment but the experimental quince scions died after 3 years on the pears. My small yellow pear, Farmingdale, harrow delight and many other pears are good interstems. Every pear fruits when certain hormones are available. "Fruit set has traditionally been attributed to the action of three hormones, auxin, and/or gibberellin, and/or cytokinin " https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2013.00079/full Metabolic Profiling of Developing Pear Fruits Reveals Dynamic Variation in Primary and Secondary Metabolites, Including Plant Hormones
Did you ever wonder why sometimes the same pear eg. Bartlett aka Williams is parthencarpic in one location but not the other? One year and not the other? Melatonin may be linked to Parthenocarpy. " Parthenocarpy, the production of seedless fruit without fertilization, has a variety of valuable qualities, especially for self-incompatible species, such as pear. To explore whether melatonin (MT) induces parthenocarpy, we used ‘Starkrimson’ pear as a material for morphological observations. According to our results, exogenous MT promoted the expansion and division of the mesocarp cells in a manner similar to hand pollination. However, the seeds of exogenous MT-treated fruit were undeveloped and aborted later in the fruit-setting stage. To further investigate how MT induced parthenocarpy, we studied changes of related hormones in the ovaries and found that MT significantly increased the contents of the gibberellins (GAs) GA3 and GA4. Thus, paclobutrazol (PAC), a GA-biosynthesis inhibitor, was used to study the relationship between GAs and MT. In addition, spraying MT after treatment with PAC did not increase GA content nor lead to parthenocarpy. Through a transcriptome analysis, we discovered that MT can cause significant upregulation of PbGA20ox and downregulation of PbGA2ox . However, no significant difference was observed in PbGA2ox compared with the control after PAC and MT applications. Thus, MT induces parthenocarpy by promoting GA biosynthesis along with cell division and mesocarp expansion in pear.
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What If I was to say my theory is we should interstem slow to fruit pears with fast to produce pears. Many claimed Warren was delayed fruiting for them so why was that not the case for me? Perhaps it’s because half my tree is grafted to Karls favorite aka Ewart. My theory is hormones present in fruiting are then released earlier to the tree by the faster to produce pear causing the slower to produce pear to fruit. That is only a theory at this point.
Years to fruit is only a estimated number. Many say cherry trees take 3 years after buying the second year tree too flower. I am getting flowers my second year though.
I find the science fascinating but at a practical level, festooning the branches is good enough for me.
I don’t want to have to pick ( or prune) from a ladder and like the look of the old style trees so went with pulling the branches out and down early.
Production was much faster than I had hoped and that was even before I figured out about one being a lousy pollinator.
Maybe too much work for a large orchard but I’m planning on the same technique in my new garden.
( I’ll figure out a use for the all beautiful, straight waterspouts I have to coppice off. I might take up basketry or fence weaving)
You really don’t need to go on a ladder to harvest fruit. With things like spray you may have a point but in terms of harvesting there is companies like docapole that will sell 30 foot poles. The average person is over 5 feet so the average person can grow a tree over 35 feet and keep harvesting from it.
Where I work, we sell BB pear trees and pears in #5 containers. It is amazing to see that pears grown in our field on OH-Farmingdale 333 take years to fruit yet those in #5 containers fruit heavily. It has to be stress from being in such a small container. I have planted small bare-root pears and they do not fruit as heavily in youth as those stuck in those #5 containers.
Some years the #5 pears bear so heavily that the following year I find those we did not sell to be all bent over and heavily deformed. Now I have the crew pull off some of the fruit each summer to prevent this.
I guess the question is how to apply this to pears in the ground to get same results? Wound them, root prune them by cutting the roots on one side of the plant? Since stress makes them fruit heavily there must be a way to stress those in the field to get similar results.
Since they fruit so early in pots, I have to wonder if anyone is intentionally growing them permanently in pots and finding the same results? Anyone growing them in #25 containers on a patio or balcony and finding that they fruit heavily?
Buy a Bradford that is large enough to fruit. Cleft grafted scions will fruit the year following the graft. I purchased close out Bradfords (6-8 ft) at $10 a piece at the garden center and had pears two years later.
When you graft any age scion onto a mature tree, the scion takes on the reproductive age of the tree to which it is grafted.
Luther Burbank introduced 800 varieties of plants. In fruit breeding, he would raise seedlings, then graft them onto fruit bearing trees. Within 3 years of sprouting, he would have fruit that he could compare to other varieties instead of the 5-15 years it would take to grow a seed to maturity.
In case he had a tree with 500 grafts to test fruit from 500 seedlings.
If you have a early bearing pear that reaches the bearing stage, then grafting a pear that takes much longer to bear would give you fruit quickly.
I grow in large pots for now. It is not a permanent situation but I have found trees can grow quite the decent size in a pot. The ones I have uprooted have often times hard their roots hardly grow. I just changed the pot to my citrus tree and the only difference from November was a few fruit hairs sticking out. I planted my cherry trees January 2021 in 30 inch wide by 20 something inch tall pots. I can see if they need to be up potted because it has major holes on the bottom sides for drainage (I got the pots from a hydroponics store). The cherry trees have still yet to send roots that far deep nearly 1.5 years later. In my experience you will get yield but it will be reduced because it will be growing in a pot. According to Raintree nursery some trees do better in pots than others. Cherry trees can be grown in pots forever, European pears will only want to be in pots for a few years but you can do what I am doing and get a head start, paw paw a pot could be preferred the first few years actually, of course citrus can be grown in a pot. I would have to look at Raintree nursery guild on plums and peaches