Ever feel like turning away and running from part of your orchard? If you never have your invited to look at these photos to get the experience of Pyrus betulifolia. These are great rootstocks they deter animals with wicked thorns and dense foliage. A deer would chose to avoid them and always have at my property. A rabbit did half girdle a trunk once. Had they fully girdled it they would have found out it would send up 10 more in retaliation. Accidently ran over some with a mower once and learned it. The beaver in my more remote lower orchard could not even kill them. They make callery look like the best members of the church choir. Here are a few before and after photos as i prepare a row for grafting. BET have a great strategy for survival. The bottom branches are thorny and at ground level. The bottom branches may extend 6 feet from the trunk which means i must cut my way in. Most animals will never make it to the main trunk. These trees survival techniques are amazing! It is very intimidating looking at a row of them and contemplating grafting them! The soil is pure clay that is bad enough it barely grows grass. The betulifolia are doing fine in this soil. These are not getting grafted yet but they will be very soon once the scions arrive.
Clark, re that upside/downside thing. I think you planted your trees upside down! Looks like some of them are headed to China! There is a reason they are considered drought tolerant!
Seriously, I wonder if Betulifolia could be crossed with Calleryana? If so, hybrid vigor might make the offspring an amazing rootstock, better than either parent.
There are hybrids of the two rootstocks. The BET are wicked rootstocks that are great if you have some remote hard to manage parts of your property like i do. The BET are not prone to being invasive. An old rootstock callery ofcourse can’t reproduce as long as it is grafted. There are callery rootstocks under many old pear trees.
Here is the follow up photo now that they are grafted. Pears grow how they want, but i do trim them into the straightest rows possible given the circumstances. When i graft i use the dominant trunk which might be 6" or 1 foot from the original as you can tell by the photos. In 5 years it wont matter a bit. This is very poor soil for fruit trees.
I planted p bet. from seed a few years back, I think seed came from Sheffield. Interesting trees and wicked spikes! Some grew upright, some more prostrate and creeping. Most are now worked over to Asian pear varieties but I plan to save a couple to grow as specimens.
They have a strong will to survive! Would not bet against them for sure! They would make a great hedge!