how cold did it get over winter? could be freeze death. my peaches weakly put out leaves and flowers and then all died off. the top was still alive but the roots were dead. they were in containers in z5b/a. medlar can handle it but the quince stock might not be able to. sucks for me as i got some quince stock to graft medlar onto this year 
where is your z5a location?
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That’s a really interesting theory I had not considered. I think you may be right. I am in 5a in Ontario, Canada. This year was average cold, we typically touch -30C a couple times but this passed year we did not at all and -28C was our lowest. Plus we had immense snow cover on the ground, which tends to protect things well. It went through colder in previous winter without seeming phased.
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Have anything else more cold hardy to try grafting medlars onto instead? Like hawthorns maybe?
Mine here in northern Michigan did the exact same thing, but the trunk cambium also died down to the snow-line. They were about six to seven feet tall, and had been healthy and growing well the last couple years. We got down to -30 C. I’m wondering if that’s the kill line for them, especially in places where the growing season isn’t very long. They went through -29 C. the winter before and seemed mostly okay, but this winter toasted them. I am letting them grow back more in a bush form now.
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did it die back below the medlar graft? you can really bury the graft when planting on quince otherwise you lose the benefits of that stock. unless the medlar would never root 
@tonyOmahaz5 buries persimmon hybrids below the graft in case they die back. i dont know if those root out or if they just send up new shoots from the highest point below ground 
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It did not die below the graft thankfully, being as the snow-line was between 2-3 ft for most of the winter. The trees have been in the ground about 5 years, planted before I practiced burying graft unions on tenders. I do so now with hybrid persimmons thanks to Tony’s advice, as well as mulberries. I would definitely suggest the same with medlars if you don’t live in a high snow area. I really wish I had buried the graft unions on my jujube’s; now all I got is two sours. I strongly question their long-term survival here, however. This was the first year I had tip-die back on pawpaw trees, it must have been a brutal combination of cold and short growing season that left them unprepared for the winter. I also had a persimmon tree or two get completely fried. However, of the other about 60 I have all have survived, including the grafted ones. JT-02 and Journey also survived, but with some damage which is normal here. I think the very short growing season (130 FFDs and 2500 GDUs in a entire year if you’re lucky) is the main culprit.
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A Medlar on its own roots would grow to be maybe 20’ tall. On Provence Quince rootstock, it might stop at 10’ tall. Is your experience in the cold that height will not be a problem?
My Nefle Tardive survived -22 F last winter. I threw maybe 1’ deep of snow on it. The graft union was buried 1" because I read the planting instruction sheet for having one grafted to Hawthorne, which curtails the lifespan unless allowed to self-root.
Nefle Tardive is one of those Medlars where it has multiple names from multiple countries, apparently being either identical or nearly identical to Nefle Precoce and Puciu Mol sdlg.
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guess that answers that question.
Height is not a problem, no. I don’t know what my rootstock is on either medlar, one was from OGW and one from Raintree. I do have a Marrion scion I am rooting; looks good so far.
Yes, lots of cold damage here for a seemingly average winter compared to what we can experience. Maybe there are more factors that can influence die-back rather than just overnight lows. Best of luck in your zone pushing endeavours.
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was in a 5 gallon pot all last year and planted in the ground a bit late this year in May.
it has a few fruit, i suspect I’ll be waiting a long time to try them.
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Are you planning to prune for a specific shape or height? The author of “Grow a Little Fruit Tree” says that peaches don’t keep, so in a backyard setting there’s no reason to let one grow higher than 5’. I can’t imagine Medlar being very different. But Medlar could have branches struck by Fireblight that you have to prune off. I’m really interested in the answer to this question because my valley is full of every disease.
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i think I’ll do any pruning in dry days in winter? at least that’s the plan right now
I grafted a couple of medlar cultivars onto apple and pear earlier this spring. The ones on apple seem to be more disease resistant. Here’s one example: two medlar grafts side by side—apple on the left and pear on the right. The only major variable was the rootstock. They received roughly the same amount of water, light, and other growing conditions, and they were even grafted from the same scions.
This is definitely not a representative sample, but I found it interesting.
Has anyone else compared the same cultivar on different rootstocks and found one to be more disease resistant than another?
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Didn’t know they were compatible with apple. I’d be interested to know how they do over the year.
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I’ve never seen modern first hand accounts of it, just references in old articles like this saying it works. It’s put on some impressive growth so far.
Chart accurate but incomplete as far as I know.
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Many of those are compatible, but not long term. I tried to put pear on service berry this year as an experiment. Supposed to be compatible, but not one of my grafts took. Keep us updated on the apple grafts.
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anyones medlar in a shady spot? how well do they do overall and production wise? i have a sunny and shady spot to fill with a persimmon and medlar and trying to decide which to plant where.
Based on posts on this forum and your zone 5 location, persimmon needs full sun. There’s a post on this forum if you search that says medlar can produce in a bit under the part-sun cutoff and the production amount is about all you’d want for a novelty tree.
Other notes about Medlar: the leaves get Cedar-Apple Rust. There are posts that it’s not a no-spray fruit. There are posts that it gets fire blight strikes.
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