Looking to plant a semi-dwarf Ayers pear in Nashville. Local nursery has some trees on Calleryana rootstock. Before finding that I was eyeing something from Raintree nursery on OHxF87 rootstock. I can’t find much information explaining what the difference between the two would be. The local nursery is advertising the Ayers on the Calleryana as semi-dwarf, but I’m guessing the OHxF87 will yield a slightly smaller tree? Any other differences between Calleryana and OHxF87 that are worth noting? This would be for a backyard tree.
The local nursery also has some Snow Queen nectarines, which would fulfill my desire to grow a white nectarine tree here in Nashville. Does anyone have any thoughts on how well that’d work? They say the trees are from a TN grower and that they do well here…
I don’t know of any ‘Calleryana’ that is dwarfing, barely semi dwarfing at the best, ‘OHxF 87’ is way more dwarfing. With ‘OHxF 87’ the tree should fruit at a younger age as well.
The sooner a plant can reach it’s full size, the faster it can fruit, and pear varieties fruit young on ‘OHxF 87’, people have found that to be true. ‘OHxF 87’ starts out slower than lets say ‘OHxF 333’, yet ‘OHxF 87’ does catch up to it. I made a mistake when I bought my ‘OHxF 87’, to save money I got the smaller size, I had no idea how small it would be, yet as long as the ‘OHxF 87’ is a big enough size it leads to younger age crops, because you can graft on to it sooner.
When I say “can reach it’s full size”, I mean the grafted on plant. The lower the percentage remaining to full size, the sooner flowers can bloom successfully.
If you have the poorest or worst of soils that don’t drain well let’s say, then you should use Bradford pear. It’s nearly impossible to kill Bradford pear, Pyrus calleryana.
If you have good soil, then go with OHxF 87. It’s not slow. And @clarkinks has educated me to understand there really isn’t much (if any) difference among OHxF 333 or 87 or 97. They all grow pretty rapidly. Pears are just so hardy in general is the reason for this and with clonal rootstocks “selected” for all the best growing traits, then you have a superior racehorse let’s use as the example. One with twice the normal size of the hearts of his competitors. I’d call that vigor if I was going to call it anything. Vigor, vigor, vigor… those are good words among plant breeders and selectors.
Early inducement is part of their vigor. I believe Clark will say that Bradford roots will bear later than OHxF’s. I don’t know those answers, here.
99% of the other story of anything being grown is the root-system at time of planting. Did someone grow it in a way as to have created an incredible mass of fibrous roots or did they plant a seed and grow a carrot type root? Right there is the more important thing to know about which tree to buy. I’d buy the Bradford with a marvelous root-system 100% of the time over the same cultivar grown on ANYroots.
I hope I have helped you. Always remove the tree from the pot if you’re ready to buy. Select the one with the best root-system and sacrifice the second best tree you found if it’s twice the trunk caliper. Twice the difference in roots is maybe equal to 4X the trunk caliper at purchase/planting time.
Good luck, always … online ordering! Find someone who knows how to grow roots.
Calleryana grafted with ayers take 7 or so years to produce fruit. Great trees and well worth the wait. Ohxf rootstocks shave 2-3 years off your wait. In Kansas i prefer Calleryana they are more drought tolerant and in general hardier. That being said ohxf are great rootstocks as well. Ohxf333 bears quickly but can reduce the size of the fruit. Ohxf87 and ohxf97 are not prone to reduced fruit size.
I’m fairly new to the forum but a long time fruit grower. I’m a calleryana fan. It did beautifully in northern Mississippi and does well here in Sebastopol, CA.
I have never grafted a tree of Ayers though I bought one when in MS that turned out to be mislabeled - I think a Mericourt. Ayers grafted on mature trees usually bears in three years
I have trees on OHxF 333, 513 and 87. I have had 2 trees on OHxF 97. On one of the 97s, Passe Crassane fire blighted to the ground and the rootstock never sent up a sprout. The other was grafted to Tenn - it never grew well and several varieties grafted to it didn’t grow well either so something was wrong. Virus infected Tenn? The tree was removed.
I do not like P. betulaefolia as a rootstock for Asian pears. I feel that it is too vigorous and promotes fire blight with the rampant new growth. Does anyone share my feeling?
Finally, precocity is very cultivar driven, though it certainly can be influenced by rootstock. Warren/Magness can take 6 or 7 years or more to fruit on calleryana or communis seedling, maybe less on some of the OHxF clones and Tyson is known to take even longer. For my first orchard experience in MS (mid 1970s), I ordered several trees form Stark Bros. - Tyson and Seckel pears and a few apples. I don’t know what rootstock they were on. But the Tyson never had fruit in the 15 years I observed the tree and it took Seckel 10 years to bear fruit. The trees grew well and when the Seckel did finally have fruit it was extremely prolific and always sold out at the farmer’s market. Seckel grafted here fruited in 3 of 4 years on calleryana. So, has anyone grafted Harrow Sweet on calleryana? As several have commented on the forum, it often fruits in 2 years on OHxF 87 as mine did. I have just finished eating my last fruit for 2020 - a very tasty pear.
@mayhaw9999
Harrow sweet produces in 1 or 2 years on callery. BET does cause vigourous growth but in heavy clay growth is not a bad thing. Location location location!
In my experience some wild callery are completely compatible and others are incompatible completely. This thread gives an example Wild callery pear rootstocks. The tame callery seem to be exact clones and compatible from williamette nursery. I like wild callery for many reasons but as an example i had a very wet area so i dug up callery from a similar area with @39thparallel we tested them and they worked 100% there in my wer area and in his.they can also tolerate drought. I enjoy t-budding as well as traditional grafting it seemed very easy but @fruitnut is a great teacher T-budding tutorial - #108 by JesseS . As an example no branch bending was done but this callery quickly produced fruit. The scion wood grew identical to the callery branches i cut off. Interesting influence the rootstock has over the tree.
I have used many interstems through the years looking for the right one such as improved kieffer, small yellow unknown pear, douglas , clara frijs etc… here is a a little of what i grow for pears Here comes the 2019 pear harvest!
Got an Ayers grafted to OHxF87 from Raintree Nursery. It has produced leaves and a little bit of growth (new limbs) but seems less vigorous than some other bare root trees I planted this season (two plums, Morris and Methley, and a Yumm Yumm Nectarine…also 3 flowering cherries that seem fine). I’ve been watering the Ayers periodically (with everyone else), and it definitely isn’t dead, but I’m wondering if there’s something I can do to make it happier. Or maybe it just needs a few more seasons to get established?
All of my new bareroot pears on OHxF87 were slower to establish than Callery. We had to water more frequently and they seem to be couple months behind the others.
