I am using electric poultry netting around our garden which is effective, but this callery pear is on the other side of the house and had no fence 
I watched it for quite a few days and no deer damage, but then bam! Most of the leaves gone! Iāve heard that about two fences kind of close together. Seems like it would work well. Right now I just made a little cage out of 2x4 wire. I will post updates.
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Yes! I will post updates. Iām optimistic about half of them. Poor scions!!
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The deer may have accidentally done you a favor. Frequently I trim my grafts so the wind does not break them off. Any more pruning would definitely be undesirable.
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Good way to think of it!
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Mike,
An orchard full of callery pear are like gold to me so I wish you were my neighbor! Love grafting them over and they are healthy good trees. If people let them seed the problems begin. They take over in spots where they seed. Kansas has not had any big problems yet but we are seeing more and more fertile trees being allowed to seed. I always graft mine over ASAP.
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Come and get them. These Callery rootstocks can be all yours for FREE. Just come and dig them up. Iāve been fighting them for the last 4 years.These are becoming an invasive species here in this area.
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When you advertise them say āfree pear tree rootstocksā on craigslist. Any orchardist in the area canāt pass that up.
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That sounds like a great idea. Iāll see what will happen when I do. My sister in law loves using Craigās list. Iāll see if she can do that for me. I HAVE to get rid of these things. They are overgrowing my pond area.
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Wild callery pears are my first choice for pear rootstock however if you donāt see the potential for rootstock Iām sure they are just another invasive plant. In my area the fields that are not in pasture or mowed regular the plants are everywhere. When I look at the fields of wild callery I start thinking about top working them to edible pear trees.
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Canāt find my deer damage pic but clearly the scions had a comeback! The only one thatās not going gangbusters is Orient. (I tried to take a close-up- itās the skinny one). I have two other scions that I grafted onto a Bartlett seedling(?) and I think I could move them to this tree next spring, so all is not lost as far as that variety. Thereās a tiny amount of blackening of leaves. Fire blight?? Not sure any will show in the pics I took so will get more later. Last pic is me holding the rootstock growth I plucked off. Hadnāt visited in a while. Whoops.
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ClothAnnie,
Thatās the right way to do it. One of these days you need to think about the best way to prune this new pear tree of yours. At that growth rate in two - three years you might pick your first pear ( or sooner). In my area that pear would be in danger of a viscous wind breaking off grafts so if you get winds like that maybe think of driving a stake beside it to tie some of new growth on to strengthen it. Great job on grafting and I like how that pear is going to turn out. Another callery put to a useful purpose. Your grandchildren may eat pears off that tree! I donāt see a sign of fireblight on that tree.
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Wow. Just over two weeks later. Crazy growth. I did get a pic of the ants farming the aphids under the leaves. Yuck. I remember watching a video about that one time. Iāve seen it on my sunflowers sometimes. Very odd. I canāt remember what the benefit is for the ants. Yes, I still need to stake
up the tall branches so they donāt get blown over, and I need to figure out how Iām going to prune this. Is it OK to let it just keep going this summer and figure out the pruning after the leaves fall?
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You can prune now or later. I start shaping mine when they are young so I prune off less later. Those side branches are good things to see so I definitely do not prune those off. Those lateral branches make your pears fruit quicker and Callery pear are notorious for that. The ants are after sugar though itās not the best quality itās easier than going out and finding sweets elsewhere. Looking very healthy! You will want to fence it off before winter so the deer etc. canāt get at it.
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You can prune now or wait until it is dormant. My preference would be to prune now so I could get the most permanent wood structure as large as possible as soon as I could. As long as the new wood is properly supported as you have done the rapid new growth will hasten your permanent structure.
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You may want to prune it up pretty soon prior to spring. The left over scion wood will work great for any other callery you want to graft over!
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Good idea! I havenāt even cut back my blackberry canes yet but I can see spring on the faaaar horizon so will make sure I get pruning soon! Thanks!
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Thinking of next years rootstocks.
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Wonder how everyone using wild callery are doing this year. My callery rootstock always seem to do very well.
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All my wild callery rootstocks are doing well. They make a huge tree without interstems.
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Mine work fine. I have a variety or two, donāt remember the name, that makes a large graft union. That might be a future issue.
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