Most people graft low near the ground. Lets say your growing comice on quince you would instantly lose an entire orchard. At my orchard my grafts might be 3’ off the ground. Fireblight hits my pear kills it to the 3’ trunk. In two years im back to a full crop of pears. The people doing it differently need to wait 4 - 8 years if the rootstock is susceptible. Quince would fruit faster than others. Quince grafted higher might send out leaves causing the trunk to get fireblight.
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What about grafting a FB resistant pear onto quince?
If i take a quince rootstock. (say Quince E(line) or Quince Adams.)
And graft harrow sweet on it. At normal graft Hight (4" above soil level)
If i only let the Harrow sweet grow. (remove suckers)
I don’t see how the tree would die? Since the trunk section below the graft can’t get FB. And Harrow Sweet usually doesn’t get it. Or only small parts die back because of FB
Pears grafted on quince generally have very little suckers. (unless an quince incompatible pear without interstem is grafted)
Pear trees on Quince E or Quince Adams can fruit in the 2e year. And reach 70-80% of full production in their 4-5th year. And full production between 6-8 years. And those are numbers here with conference and Doyenné du Comice. I imagine it might be sooner with a super fruitful variety like Harrow sweet.
I can imagine you cannot produce the quince rootstocks in an area that’s prone to fireblight. And you would have to be diligent in removing suckers. But both don’t seem that hard.
or graft an interstem of OHxF and graft 3’ high on that interstem.
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That is absolutely true. The one way that quince could get fireblight in that situation is if you had a bartlett seedling growing beside it that got hit with fireblight and died to the roots. The roots of the quince and bartlett could be grafted together underground. That is a nearly impossible situation which i have never seen. Where you might really see that is in high density plantings.
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My Magness on Quince has performed well despite being next to an Asian that need some light FB surgery last season. One small tip strike but shook it off. I actually have it in a big root trapper container (im experimenting!).
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