Quince on pear

I’ve heard of many people putting pears on quince to dwarf the tree. Quince on pear is something I have not heard of. England’s nursery has quince scions. Some quince are not fireblight prone.Any reason to not graft quince to pears?

Because it could produce quince fruit… :slight_smile:

In all seriousness, I haven’t heard of that being done. But I’m also not sure why you would want quinces. The one time I bought one out of curiosity, it smelled nice, but was not something I wanted to eat. Good for a decorative fruit bowl. I think you may be able to cook with them too. Maybe someone on here has had good experiences with them.

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I have read that there not all varieties of pear work on quince, might go the other way too?

Here’s what Cummins has to say:
DWARFING PEAR ROOTSTOCKS
For many years, pears have been grafted onto quince rootstocks to obtain dwarf trees analagous to apple trees dwarfed on Malling 9. Most varieties of pears are more or less incompatible on most quince clones (but in several instances, including Bartlett on Quince A, expression of incompatibility may often be delayed until 8 or 10 years or more in the orchard). All the quince stocks we have tested have been quite susceptible to fire blight and most are somewhat winter-tender. Even so, there are many outstanding plantings of dwarf pears in commercial production.

At Cummins Nursery, we graft onto Quince only those
few varieties known to be compatible.

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Yes im familiar with certain pears compatibility. I considered using a compatible variety as an interstem. As Bob mentioned the question might be why do it? I’ve never seen or tasted a quince so I was thinking about it because they are widely grown elsewhere.

My thoughts are if the pear is compatible being grafted onto the quince root it should work with the quince being grafted onto pear roots. This is the same basic procedure I use with my pear to apple grafts. Good luck, Bill

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Bill,
Do you graft an interstem of winter Nellis? In Kansas we have only seen pictures of quince as I mentioned so I was just curious why some countries grow a lot of quince. England’s Nursery has a nice selection of scion wood.

I can’t speak from personal experience, but my grandfather used to refer to quince as a fruit “one of which is sufficient to ruin an entire barrel of apple jelly”.

A friend who is a produce man found a trade for them locally with chefs who cooked them, IRRC, into sauces. Should be worth a try.

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Currently I have several varieties grafted between pear/apples growing and a few have fruited. Some are with interstems and some directly grafted. My oldest graft between the pear/apple is about six years in and appears to be doing well. Some of the unions look better than the others. I also use an unknown dwarf interstem with my pear trees. Unfortunately I don’t know if the interstem is quince or pear but it is working well. I haven’t grafted the winter nellis due to not having it. Thanks, Bill

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Marknmt,
I know my family who grew them a generation ago said they were terrible. The variety might have explained that problem. Could you imagine if the only pear you ever tried was Kieffer? I suspect Kieffer and quince are similar but the quince is not grainy and has a perfume like odor. I’m suspicious pear, perfume pear, and quince are all close cousins and seed crosses could be interesting if they would cross.

The kieffer pear in my area is a late ripening pear that is mostly used as a cooking pear and for deer forage. The taste to me is ok. I haven’t grown the quince but I have purchased a few and they taste completely different from any pear I have tasted. I like sour fruit such as crab-apples but the quince I tasted took sour to another level. It might be good in a pie but not for fresh eating in my opinion.

Good to know that some are sour. My family described the ones they tasted as lacking flavor or rather bland and not sour but missing desirable qualities.

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I suspect you’re right, but what do I know. That kind of possibility intrigues me, but I can see a guy getting into quite a tangle of things if he tried to explore too many of them!

Good luck with it.

Mark

Im also researching some other varities of pears Pyrus × bretschneideri - Wikipedia and Pyrus pyrifolia - Wikipedia and the one everyone in the colder states will want is this one Krazulya Pear Tree - Developed in Russia - Hardy zone 3a could you imagine some quince pear crosses? I think it would be incredible.

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I always assumed quince was cooked into jam, I didn’t think it was eaten fresh.

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Some are said to be good enough to be eaten fresh which to me says they should be cooked.

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Watch out for quince rust, its like CAR but worse as it infects the fruits.

Quince are great for cooking. The classic recipe is quince jelly.

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I have found that “edible” doesn’t always mean palatable!

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I have two pears on quince. Works really well!

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I know quince dwarfs pears but I suspect pears do not dwarf quince. I’m also considering grafting a couple of Hawthorne on the same tree. Here’s a link with examples of this scion wood http://nuttrees.net/assorted-scion.pdf and pricing Scion Wood For Sale. Here is where we can buy quince if we don’t care to graft Fruit Trees For Sale

I really like quince. If I had to choose between quince and pear I’d choose quince. I never eat them raw.

When cooked they transform, the flesh becomes soft, the color turns rosy red (after a long, slow time) and the astringency disappears.

I like to bake them like a baked apple with lots of vanilla sugar and eat with a scoop of ice cream. I like to make a compote for waffles and such. I also like the juice for a dry (astringent) soda, or just sauce it like apple sauce (although I find fruit sauces a bit boring).

Quince paste is also delicious, but its just too much sugar to be worth it for me most of the time.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve grafted quince onto my sister’s European pear of unknown variety. It grew well and produced fruit for 2 years. The tree never gets pruned and I think the Hosui on the same tree is shading it. I think the quince branch is still alive, but I haven’t seen fruit on it the last couple of years.

The tree gets less that good care.

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