Hi Everyone:
Looks like all my 5 quince trees (all grated on Quince A) are affected with fire blight. It will probably be a case of chopping them dow. I was wondering if quince seedlings are affected as much or as often as grafted quince trees? Is it worth it to put some hope in quince seedlings or just forget about growing quince?
Thanks!
Marc
I don’t recommend growing Quince fruit from seedlings.
Dear Richard:
Thanks for you reply. You are a man of few words, right? For my personal education I wonder if you could “make my day” by stating why you don’t recommend growing quince from seedlings? A question of seedling taste Vs quince grown from grafted quince? Takes too much time before fruiting? Grafted or coming from seedlings quince are a waste of time? Thanks! Marc
Cultivars are selections from seedlings. The selection rate for fruit quality in quince breeding programs is low and selections from nature are singletons.
Fireblight should be similar between seedling and grafted quince… poor for both! Nearly all quince do very poorly with fireblight. There are a few varieties and some breeding on quince with more resistance, I am growing a few of those myself.
Hi Scott:
If you could propose some cultivars/varieties that you believe could be a bit more fire blight resistant I would take good note! Thanks! Marc
Marc, unfortunately there are no commercially available varieties. There was a breeding program in Bulgaria which produced some good ones but they don’t seem to be available anywhere. The USDA got some seeds and grew them out and there used to be several available there, but I just checked and they are not available any more. I have two of them myself and am happy to send you some wood this winter. One is fruiting and seems like a perfectly fine quince. It got blight in this very bad year for the first time, but not as bad as some of my pears did.
PS here is an abstract of a paper by the Bulgarian researchers.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=263460
PPS I found a place in Europe selling some of the Bulgarian selections as well as the varieties they used in their breeding program (Triumph and Asenica): Quince cultivars - Balkan Ecology Project
Hi Scott;
Thanks for the info. I tried to get the .pdf of this interesting article but it’s not for free even if its old stuff… Since you have a lot of experience with quince affected by fire blight I’m wondering what to think about this US nursery not very far away from my home: perfectcircle.farm?
This guy seems to have hardy stuff which is just fine for me. His persimmons collection is very impressive and his quince collection contains cultivars that look very different from what I can see in 
.
I wonder if he has a cultivar for me, hardy and low on fire blight. I just have to investigate this place.
Once again, thanks!
Marc
Marc, I believe Tashkent is quite cold hardy and ripens early. It does not seem to have fireblight noted here (but may be susceptible to other issues):
https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/accessiondetail?id=1397268
I actually did order one for that reason. I have bought quite a few nice things from Perfect Circle in the past.
Edited to add, you may find this PDF useful as it has a lot of information on cold hardiness:
Hi Buckeye;
Thanks for your comment. Did not have the time yet to investigate Perfect circle farm but will in a few days. Thanks also for the file. Marc
Those varieties look like Russian ones, I don’t know if they made it to the US or not. My guess is they are more winners for hardiness than fireblight.
I found a nursery called Mad Cat Farm which sells scionwood of one of the Bulgarian ones, Hemus. That might be worth trying out if you can get it shipped to Canada.
Hi Scott;
I just have to make my homework now and investigate about those “Russian” cultivars. I will also see for the nursery you mentioned but I sent a request to Cliff England nursery and it’s was 80$ for a phytosanitary certificate and 62$ for shipping to my place and 7$ a stick. I’m not THAT rich…
Marc
Thank you for sharing the pdf file. Based on a 3 year study, quince variety that is least susceptible to fire blight is Limon/Lemon from Turkey (though this is not reported to be cold hardy).
Is anyone growing Limon/Lemon? Anyone has tasted the fruit of this variety?
Hi everyone:
I sent 5 pictures of the troubled quince trees to the nursery I bought them from and based on those photos they were not 100% sure that it’s a case of fireblight. They did not even give a differential diagnosis. For supposedly specialists I’m disappointed…
The first picture is from my only well to do quince tree that came from another nursery.
Thanks all!
Marc
I’ve always thought of growing a flowering quince as an espalier but I’m finding out as others already know it’s not a good choice for FB areas.
From what I’ve read there just is not enough interest for people (organizations) to be breeding for it as it isn’t a big enough or wide spread enough commercial crop. Because of the lack of motivation, no one has developed good FB resistant varieties.
My climate here just doesn’t let me play with nice things …
Which 5 selections got fireblight for you?
I will try grafting the fireblight-resistant cultivars Scott mentioned this year.
I also have a Claribel which is disease-resistant but not sure if fireblight-resistant.
I also have Limon, SekerGeverk, and maybe Ekmek still around and disease hasn’t hit them hard yet (but lost alot of other trees like Aromatnaya/Crimea/Kuganskaya/KarpsSweet).
