Seckel Pear Vigor and Habit

I’ve had ‘Seckel’ about four years planted at the same time as a couple other pear varieties (I don’t recall the rootstock, but believe they were all on the same semi-vigorous selection). What has really stood out is difference in growth habit. My ‘Seckel’ has naturally produced such an abundance of thick sturdy branches that I’ve had to thin them a couple of times to make sure the long term core structure isn’t congested. Meanwhile the other varieties have been quite spindly by comparison.

In a way ‘Seckel’ appears to be highly vigorous, but not in a get tall quick kind of way. This natural density of growth habit leaves me wondering if ‘Seckel’ is naturally a compact tree (even if grown on vigorous rootstock).

I’d love to hear from anyone else with observations on how 'Seckel’s natural growth habit compares to other pear varieties (especially interested in what its form is like on semi-vigorous or vigorous rootstock).

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Mine grows that way. Generating lots of side branching and fruiting spurs. It’s on an unknown dwarfing rootstocks from one of the big places like Gurney’s. It’s very easy to manage compared to what I’d expect for a European pear. Except its the only one having significant blister mite problems.

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From what I have read many if not all pears are compact growers. Even on OHXF 87 which is nearly standard and some debate is a standard size tree the recommended spacing is only about 8-12 feet. In other words pears grow high but not very far in width. Great for those who want lots of produce with minimal space.

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From what I’ve seen most pears seem narrower than tall. By “compact” I mean in all directions.

@JohannsGarden

Yes seckle is a petite pear tree with petite fruit. It never reaches the size of other trees in my experience.

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When I was a kid (high school age), we planted a small home orchard with several pear varieties (Moonglow, Comice, Anjou, Seckel). Then we got the bright idea to graft them all to each other so that they were all 4-way trees, thinking if any trees died we would still have all of the varieties. I left home to join the Army, then went to college. When I came back home, there had not been any pruning to balance out the different varieties of varying vigor. Seckel out competed the other varieties on every single tree. In the end it turned out to be four Seckle trees…

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That’s a funny experience to have! I wonder if it shaded out the others due to the density of its branching or due to height.

Seemed like both. Very vigorous.

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@SpokanePeach

Simply don’t understand that as it’s the opposite of my experience here. Are you sure it was a true seckle? Here at my orchard I grafted many trees to callery including seckle. All other trees doubled the growth of seckle. Clara frijs, Maxine, Kieffer, Duchess d’ angoulme all 2x as large. Grafted new pears years later that outgrew seckle again pineapple pear, ya li, Charles Harris, abate feel, Korean Giant to name a few. Went so far with seckle as to do a sub experiment where one seckle is on oxf87 and the other on callery. The ohxf87 is smaller. The scion wood for my seckle came from Corvallis . Perhaps it grows better with competition grafted on the same tree! In my opinion Moonglow, Comice, Anjou are not good growers here either. When I grafted those 3 on my multigrafts I’ve had to cutback the parent wood off them 3 or 4 times removed half of the grafts due to diseases.

Maybe 8 or 9 years old, 7 feet tall. Cattle panel cage is 4 feet per side.

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I’ve noticed the same kind of thick dense growth from my Wolden Seckel, it’s on OHxF 333, I only had 2 of the 15 grafts I did survive. I’ve since changed my approach to grafting where I was doing bench grafting I’ve now switched to growing up the root stock one season then grafting them in the nursery.

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Very nice branching. Did you use limb spreaders?

I don’t think I used limb spreaders, and I don’t think I did any limb training, just pruning.

As it gets bigger I’ll probably thin some of the lower scaffolds off. My intention is to remove the cage in a couple of years with most of the canopy outside of deer browse.

I posted the image to illustrate that it has a nice growth habit. It’s been super easy to manage the shape, open, good crotch angles, and plenty of fruit buds.

The pruning has been thinning, and heading to outward facing buds.

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@murky

Great looking tree. That’s typical growth for seckle. Great looking petite trees.

I’m not sure what to tell you, fruit sure looked like Seckel. Small, sweet, lots of red to the skin. In fact all 4 varieties seemed to produce true to type while they produced.

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Considering that with any fruit some cultivars will be more or less compatible with a given rootstock than others. I wonder if ‘Seckel’ had a higher degree of compatibility than the others causing the rootstock to favor ‘Seckel’ grafts over the others when given a choice.

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@SpokanePeach

I’m shocked by your experience with seckle but not doubting or discounting your experience. There are so many factors that are different I would hardly know where to begin describing them. Certainly your area has higher rainfall, less wind, the trees that you grafted to don’t like this climate very well overall. Perhaps given those factors your account makes perfect sense. Comice is not a strong grower here and seckle is stronger as an example. In my location many times as I passed seckle trees my eyebrows were raised by it not growing but it is growing better than comice.

@JohannsGarden

Absolutely agree it’s possible and have alluded to similar concepts that your bringing up

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It’s a well maintained fruit tree, sounds like you’ve done your homework with this beautiful Seckel Pear. I noticed a good amount of fruit spurs as well. Did you say what rootstock it was on?

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I consider Seckel moderately vigorous if it isn’t plagued by psyla. What is unusual about it for a pear is its naturally spreading form. In the northeast, its relatively high brix is useful- pears can be sugar challenged here.

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This my 1st post here, so pardon me if I screw up?

In general, I do not like most pear fruit.
But, but, I do like them little Seckel kind.
I plan to buy/plant 1-2 of them this spring …

-George (gorgi)

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