Nothing wrong with having different species together it keeps disease from sweeping down your rows.
Everything seems to be doing well… also have some nectarines and peaches in this row… the elder roots seem to break up and make the soil better somehow? I planted a Kosui pear in this row a couple of weeks ago… very risky for such an expensive tree but it seems happy.
After i saw that roots communicate with each other and there are helper trees etc…i figured i would give it a try. There are apple and plums in there also.
Maybe a total fail but so far so good.
We wouldn’t do anything until next spring. I don’t want to deal with any non-dormant season grafting. We have still have a few pear rootstocks we could graft onto (including some volunteer calleries from our stupid neighbors who have rows of Bradfords). I don’t remember where we got the scion wood in 2020, but I’m sure I can find it again. Maybe the Lawrence Fruit Tree Project. Actually, that’s pretty likely.
I have one planted second year in the ground @clarkinks. It was a starkbros $18.19 “surpreme” sale pear on their “standard” root stock. I also bench grafted two this spring on OHXF97 with scions from the starkbros shenandoah. No fruit yet still to young. It was growing well but cicadas have pruned it back for me
I sure hope they are all they are supposed to be. We will all find out together if the universities know their stuff or not. They sure grow like a weed.
Shenandoah pear tree flowering from several different clusters on a 103F August day.
I might rename these pears “New Butt™” or maybe “Worm Butt™”. Nearly 100% of them had worms enter. Care for some Worm Butt™ pears? High in essential nutrients. Yummy.
My Shenandoah tree set several clusters of fruit 3 weeks ago. I’m leaving them on as I’m doubtfully interested to see if they will mature. We typically get our first frosts here in late November and no hard freezes until January, so probably not enough time, but we shall see.
They do have a great taste. Not bland. Some might almost border on intense in a good way.
I really like the flavor and the slight acidity in these pears.
Some pears are parthenocarpic and can produce fruit without seed. I have not seen any serious research on the exact mechanism. Some parthenocarpic plants require pollination but seed do not form. Self-fertilization may be able to provide the pollination requirement.
tldr: before presuming it is self-fertile, check if it has seed or not. No seed may mean parthenocarpic.
Thank you. I will split the fruit open, once i know for sure that it won’t ripen, and see.