It's complicated. Overloaded, and needs support

This limb hangs over the fence and it is almost exclusively reserved for the grands. It is loaded this year. I will probably have to remove some of the fruit. The limb was originally Moonglow pear but is now about 90% apples.
Pears: Moonglow, Harrow Sweet, and Korean Giant.
Apples: Pink Lady, Liberty. Gold Rush, Williams Pride, King David, Rubinet, Mutsu, and Carolina Red June.

14 Likes

Looks a little like a dove tree.

1 Like

Bill,
Do you need to have interstem before grafting apples on this Moonglow?

I grafted a Calville Blanc on a pear without interstem. It grew well but the fruit were not quite full size and several dropped before maturity.

2 Likes

The interstems I used were Winter Banana or Mollie. I’m testing some other interstems but not on this limb.

2 Likes

The Winter Banana and Mollie grafted ok at least for the short term. These have been grafted about four years. Some of the unions look better than the others.

2 Likes

About 4-5 years ago I grafted several apple varieties onto different variety pears. There was one that the union looks the best and it was Yates apple grafted on an Asian Pear (sorry but I don’t know the variety).

2 Likes

So Yates is still alive on your Asian pear? Wow. A great experiment.

5 Likes

Just want to emphasis that if you attempt these crossover grafts keep in mind that they can be enjoyable to grow but incompatibility could occur later down the road.

2 Likes

Agree with Bill re. possible long term issue. My Calville Blanc on Blake’s Pride grew very well. But the graft union was ugly, swollen. After 3 years I removed it.

My other apple Kamijin de Sonnaville was grafted on Korean Giant. It grew well. The graft union also looked ugly. I remove it after two years. It was fun while it lasted.

2 Likes

Gosh, Tippy, if we’re going to start taking out every ugly looking graft on our trees I’m in trouble!

:-)M

7 Likes

These ugly looking were also not stable. They could have broken if a real strong storm came.

Bellieve me, I have seen ugly grafts. There are ugly grafts and there are these ugly grafts :joy:

5 Likes

What are all the plastic looking things?

1 Like

Plastic bags to protect fruit.

1 Like

They are ziploc sandwich bags from Walmart.

1 Like

This Moonglow limb is grafted onto a callery pear. I assume it is pretty much a standard size tree. One thing I have noticed is that the callery root/trunk has carried a heavy load of fruit and they size up well. I don’t think I have tested it’s limit yet although this limb probably has more than it needs. Just added some additional temporary limb support.

2 Likes

The Yates is still going strong. I just bagged a few of the apples on this limb.

2 Likes

I plan to try this next year: graft Yates on a friend’s wild Bradford pear seedlings.

3 Likes

Let us know how it works out.

2 Likes

When bagging is finished it is like watching paint dry.


4 Likes

I never did thin the fruit but both the Carolina Red June and Williams Pride have ripened and been picked. Although those are gone the other fruit is getting bigger and heavier so the limbs are pulling down. I would like to think the pulling down is somewhat controlled and desired. I want these limbs to be in easy reach for my grands.


Korean%20Giant%20100_4573%20(1) Left%20Goldrush%20100_4570%20(1)

4 Likes