Wild callery pear rootstocks

They occupy any vacant spot near most cities…and even in the countryside.
Callery pear seedlings by the thousands. Like honeysuckle.

You can’t put either of those Genies back in the bottle…
so let the tree-huggers try if they think they can.

But, they can’t. Therefore, learn to make lemonade from lemons!

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@BlueBerry

Cut it off tordan the stump it will die but the ground is poison for 7 years. The first thing that will tell you the ground recoved will be callery in 7 years. People who let these things seed were not taking care of their land but land developers, real estate companies , banks and many others were the biggest offenders for letting them seed. They buy huge tracks of lands and investment properties but don’t take care of them. The time to stop the spread of callery has now passed. If you graft them over your doing the very best thing you can. Remember every nursery for the most part uses some type of rootstock and they are one of the best. If someone wants a hay field they tordan the callery pears as they come up mowing off the field every year which is very effective. Is the wild blackberry, Elm, cedar, Multiform rose, honeysuckle, mulberry any less of a problem?

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Yes Callery is invasive but they are already everywhere in my area. The invasion has already occurred so in my opinion and using a few as rootstock will not make any difference pertaining to it being invasive. I don’t see any realistic means of preventing it from taking over cleared areas that have not been taken care of. Just my opinion.

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These are lots of flower buds, right?! This is the best pic I could get- ph not cooperating.
image|640x480

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@ClothAnnie

Cant see the picture very well but I see what looks like a bunch of fruit spurs. Pear fruit buds are unmistakable they look like small footballs at first then they split the shuck off the bud and start opening up to bloom.

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@ClothAnnie

Can see your photo now yes it’s loading up nicely with blooms I hope the cold doesn’t get them. If anyone can’t see the photo this is it. The left side appears to be ayers and it’s heavy with fruit buds.
That spurring pattern when ayers begin fruiting is textbook. The right side may be ayers as well but i cant tell that yet. 6ac95765a556b09a32511543682450b7236d0958.jpeg
Rotated your photo and zoomed in a bit on your photo the tree looks fantastic!
6ac95765a556b09a32511543682450b7236d0958.jpeg
The bark on the right side looks lighter gray but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all. See the comparison below

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@ClothAnnie

You should be getting some heavy fruit set this year! I’m excited to see the tree!

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Grafted this invasive pear in honor of Clark. My new grafting devise was a little off on the cut, but it should work.

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@Sparty

Love those Italian grafting tools or the knockoffs that make those perfect saddle grafts! That graft should take easily as that pear grafts well! That’s a great use for a wild callery pear! Think you will enjoy that pear!

I have an iPhone6 which isn’t letting me take anything other than incredibly blurry pics at the moment but there are lots of little baby pears!! I will try to borrow my husband’s phone later to get a good pic or two. :slight_smile: I’m excited! So, for Ayers, they can ripen on the tree, right?

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@ClothAnnie

Yes they will ripen on the tree and turn from green to a lighter yellow color once they are ripe. They will be heavily blushed with red on one side. They will ripen in very late July or August in Zone 6b. They are soft, sweet, dripping and juicy when they are ripe. They are a true melting type pear. In some climates the peel can have a slightly off taste some years.

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Wild callery continue to surprise me here. There is much more to these trees than we know I think.

The fruit set was not as good as I hoped this year. We still have plenty of pears I think for our uses.

I think mostly the Asians fell to freezes…Bartlett limbs are loaded on a multi-graft tree but even that one (Bartlett) has no crop on a tree at a lower elevation near the valley. (I might guess it had gone biennial, but it had a heavy bloom…probably lack of bees in the cool April days on end of under 60 degrees).

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Tree update: I was thinking that only the Ayers had fruited. It definitely has lots more- it’s way more dominant (?) as even the graft unions at the trunk show. Moonglow grafts are circled in red; there’s another big Ayers branch/leader behind the big Ayers in the pic). I’m pretty sure the other variety is Moonglow. The VERY few fruits I can find of the Moonglow are so high I can’t get a good pic even using my husband’s good phone. Not even sure we’ll get them with a ladder! Anyway… Lots of baby fruits! Should I thin them? Also, I noticed a few Ayers fruits like the one close up: pretty and pink but almost seeming to have a gall or something.

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@ClothAnnie

There is really no need to thin them unless the tree is heavy but nor is there a reason to keep malformed fruit. There are always a few like that we have to hope its not rust starting but there could be some. Rust is becoming prevalent all over. There are worse things. Ayers is given to be biennial as it produces very heavy one year lighter the next if left to itself. There is no need to crawl up there on a ladder for pictures but you might want to buy yourself a fruit picker. I’m not sure how tall your tree is or how tall you and your hisband are but here are some choices https://www.amazon.com/COCONUT-Picker-Assemble-Catcher-Getting/dp/B07V7SM7Z2/ref=asc_df_B07V5MNH6F/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=366315293950&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4725951510142588908&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9024009&hvtargid=pla-807290612137&psc=1&ref=&adgrpid=81881007808&th=1

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Thanks! I may try to just cull some of the deformed fruits one day this week. Is the rust that pears get similar to cedar apple rust?

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@ClothAnnie

There are several types some rust affect fruit only and some rust has an impact on leaves only.

I took my ladder out to get a better look. Most of the baby fruits are affected by… rust, I guess. :disappointed:

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@ClothAnnie

Pears are very resilient fruit you might get a big crop. .

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