No Duchess is just a slang for Duchess D’angoulme its not accurate though. There is only one Duchess to me.
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Oh, ok, thanks!! Good to know. Since there’s a Harrow Sweet and Harrow Delight, plus so many other similar names indicating different varieties, I thought for sure that they must be different. Ha! I looked at Winter Banana since I remember reading that it can be a good interstem in case I wanted to put some apple varieties on my callery trees but then I think I read that it’s very susceptible to rust so am skipping that for now unless you advise to try it. It’s all an experiment, that’s for sure, but since it takes so much time to learn, I really appreciate hearing others’ experiences.
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If you’re considering WB for interstem purposes… I wouldn’t be worried about CAR susceptibility… it’s gonna be at most an 8-10 inch piece of wood with no leaves on it - unless you’re going to grow a scaffold framework of WB and graft pears onto the various branches.
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A lot of it is seasonal conditions…some years the same tree doesn’t look so pretty.
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Last year I grafted over 11 callery pear to various dessert and cider varieties. It was my first attempt at grafting and on 9 of the 11 trees the grafts took. I had a question regarding the nurse branches that I left, should I remove them this winter or leave them for longer? I am in upstate NY zone 5b, the grafts were all bark grafts.
Thanks for all the helpful information on this thread.
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Me too. Planning on trying this soon, maybe with some side by side comparisons on M111
Welcome to the forum. Yes remove the nurse branches since the grafts are established. Continue to remove callery shoots that sprout from the trunk.
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Hear, hear! Callery can be put to good use!
I will be going down the road of using self-sown Callery as a rootstock as well. I’ve already dug 4 of them but that taproot broke my digging fork handle. I’ve got some scrap (#12?) rebar and thick wall electrical conduit and am going to weld up a new version of my “pine popper”, much like a 2 tined broadfork. What method have y’all found is best for digging a Callery?
I’ve found that my cutter mattock (fitted with an extra long handle and with the axe side removed from the head) work well for destroying eleagnus, autumn olive, leatherleaf mahonia and Chinese privet, all of which are invading this area.
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I dug up some Callery rootstocks a couple of years ago. I had to dig around the tree pretty big, and cut the taproot with my pruner’s, or my recepicating saw. The size of the rootstocks was about the size of my index finger. It was a lot of work. I grafted different varieties of pears to them. I got 9 good pear trees to plant in the back yard.
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My experience has been that unless the seedling is really small, I’m not going to be able to get the entire taproot. And that they survive just fine. I transplanted some in july, watered them once, and they survived.
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Do you have ‘Ayer’ pear developed by O.H.Osman - Douglas County, KS - in your collection? Also looking for ‘Eureka’, (Kieffer x Seckel). Thanx
Just want to update with my initial grafting project. It’s Ayers and Moonglow (the Ayers has really been dominant and is probably 70% of the tree) grafted onto Callery. I think I did the grafts spring of 2017. @Auburn generously sent me some scionwood and here we are! I’ve got a bit of funky double leader(?) growth but did just prune some crossing branches, at least as high as I can reach. It amazes me that the Ayers lowest branch has a girth of possibly even more than the Callery trunk.
I have probably 20ish scion sticks that I’ve bought/traded in my fridge to try to out on other Callery we have.
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Same here, ‘Warren’ and ‘Luscious’ are thicker than the host. You can graft a branch of each your good pears to each other up high, they inter-lock each side to help prevent splitting at the weak crotch angle. Much better than cabling.
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I want to remind Growing Fruit members of just how terrible callery pears are for our environment. Here is a recent article, written by a plant ecologist, with a good history of the trees and an explanation of why we need to eradicate them. The state of Ohio has passed a law that went into effect January 1, 2023, that makes it a crime to sell, plant or grow callery pears. South Carolina and Pennsylvania have passed similar bans that will take effect in 2024.
Please do your part. Don’t use them as rootstocks. Cut them down and apply a herbicide to the stem. It is never to late to make a difference.
Marc
Dont think anyone will cut down their 25 or 30 year old orchard or their 2 year old orchard. It cost tens of thousands of dollars or more to plant 1 acre. At this point no more additional callery are being sold in most locations or planted. There have still been nurseries selling them in recent years. Im planting only BET rootstocks aka Pyrus betulifolia at this point. They are larger but i make them work.
https://treefruit.wsu.edu/web-article/pear-rootstocks/
Many pears purchased from big box stores or online nurseries are on callery pear. There is lots of misinformation out there about rootstock size and other things.
It makes just as much sense to plant BET now.
They are inexpensive and very hardy just like callery. Betulaefolia Pear | Willamette Nurseries rootstock clonal seedling fruit tree ornamental seedlings
If you had trees 30 years old on callery or what you believe might be callery would you chainsaw down your entire orchard and your only source of income? If so there wont be many pears in the grocery store this year or in about 10 years to come.
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Yeah, but if you count all the selfseeded callery pears, the tree count in the country is greater than it used to be…so I’m guessing if you are going to recommend obliterating them, you’ll suggest some seeds or young plants to replace them along the fences and roads of our nation?
(Or else it sounds like you are for cutting roadsides and also rainforests.)
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The thousands planted by the government will likely be a big job to remove on roadsides and in parks. They will also need to remove them from easements, national parks, and waterways, reservors etc. where they are a big problem. The grafted ones in peoples orchards are not the ones setting seeds. Most of us have no way to know what rootstock we have on over half of our trees. At the time the thread was started callery were not a problem in this area.
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This is a big waste of tax payers money! Leave them alone
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That is the point , at this time removing them is not reasonable. Could you imagine the man power it would take to do it? No individual is going to cut down their home orchard pears either. In many cases a few pear trees produce a lot of groceries.
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