A lady drove by today and stopped to look at my Asian pear. It is a monster… 25 feet or more tall. It is loaded to the breaking point with fruit like it is almost every year.
I asked her if she wanted some. She accepted so I picked her some fruit.
She asked if she could grow the tree from the pear seeds.
I told her I don’t know.
She asked me why.
I asked her if she meant, why don’t I know if the Raja can be grown from seeds.
She said yes.
I told her I don’t know that much about it because I’m not that interested in it. I just plant trees for the fruit, not as a hobby. But I told her if she researches it and she can’t grow by seed; I will be happy to give her a branch of the tree to grow it.
I told her the best thing for her to do is to go buy a big Raja tree at the COOP in Spring for $60. She said, Oh no, she is too cheap. Now mind you, this lady was probably in her 80’s and drove a newish Cadillac.
A Green Gage plum I had took maybe 11 - 12 years to produce some plums. Then a couple years later all the plums had to be pulled out bc of black knot. So, no time to f around when it comes to fruit trees.
You want fruit…stop fooling with them twigs! Go buy big, developed trees. (Unless broke, it is a hobby or it is an oddball tree.)
I like twigs (whips). I can prune and shape them to my liking better and with horizontal branch bending i can have fruit a little earlier on most of them. However i dont want 25 feet trees myself. So im ok fooling with them and 3-4 years is fair to me. Even though many fruit earlier. I have some in pots now waiting to be planted in the Fall that fruited this year.
This is all that i personally want or desire out of each tree… but i do understand that some want/need more.
Drew also makes some points about fruit quality vs quantity etc.
I buy twigs because I do not want to wait 5-10 years for a store bought tree to fruit. Use high quality rootstock and you can get fruit of high quality and size in 2-3 years. And a very vigorous rootstock to create a long lasting scion repository.
i find you dont really get that big of a headstart buying bigger trees. by time you plant them and they adapt to your soil and conditions and start to grow well its at least a few years. a good sized grafted seedling grows alot faster and is 1/8th the price. at best you maybe get fruit a year or 2 quicker with the big expensive tree. i have enough mature trees fruiting to keep me going while a add more grafted seedlings. just planted 10 apples at my sons property that i grafted in april. they all have healed nicely and put out about 12-14’’ of growth. hes in open farmland so they should grow and produce quickly. they are all grafted to heirloom varieties ive found around here. next year im going to do a bunch of pears on mountain ash rootstock i got growing all over the place here. they fruit withinin 3-4 years on this rootstock
Fortunately, I nearly always meet at least two if not all three of these requirements.
I do enjoy propagating. Unfortunately, I usually also qualify as some level of broke. Add to that, I don’t have too many good nurseries close by. Twigs ship better than trees.
I guess the point of this post is, if you want fruit trees, look for property with an established orchard- or at least one big fruit tree. Or maybe it is to purchase bearing age fruit trees, which, as someone who sells them, I can tell you are hard work to plant and pricey. Plus, the varieties that are usually available from general tree nurseries are not necessarily what you are going to want to eat. If they are balled and burlapped they may take 2 years before they are vigorous enough to graft over or produce fruit without runting them out
However, bearing age trees with at least a 2.25" diameter trunk will certainly speed the development of a productive orchard if it’s done right, especially for species and varieties that are slow to come to bear- like apples, pears and E. plums- otherwise I wouldn’t be in the nursery business. It amazes me how many peach trees I can sell when a whip of this species can be a productive tree in 2-3 years when managed well in decent soil. The trees I sell usually don’t recover enough the first season to be practical to carry fruit that year, but the peaches will still be larger 3 years later than if you planted a whip and they are too big for the deer we have to destroy them.
Yeah I’m a whip tree guy myself. They can produce the second year. I’ve been doing this twelve years and this year is amazing. The fruit was dry all season. Not much rain. So brix is high. It is so dry I’m watering the trees which I usually never do. I’m also enjoying tons of large purple raspberries. I have three different crosses growing in my yard. All unique cultivars developed in my yard. Well one was a volunteer. All fruiting now on primocanes. Fantastic!! I have amazing white and yellow nectarines. So good this year. Been loads of fun! I still have a few yellows on the tree. I need to harvest soon.
Add to that, I don’t have too many good nurseries close by. Twigs ship better than trees.