I posted this message on Gardenweb, so I'll treat this as a contest to see which forum provides better and/or more timely information.
I was amazed to discover that my quince tree, which I created as a bench graft last spring, has flower buds about to bloom at all of the terminal growth.
Both the tip of the leader as well as all of the little 4" branches of new growth off of the main stem each have a flower forming.
I'm not sure what to do. I didn't think there would be any chance of having flowers yet.
The tree is only about 3' tall. At the end of last fall it was a bare whip which I headed this winter in hopes of inducing branching.
When one of my infants start acting like an adolescent, I just want to throw a party for it. If your baby is too small to have babies of its own, I imagine you just don't let any fruit that sets get too big. If there is any harm done by actually letting the blossoms be pollinated, I hope someone will let me know. None of my young trees has set fruit yet, and one of them is substantial enough to handle a light fruit load, so it hasn't been a problem for me.
Try pollinating the quince with aronia, serviceberry, or hawthorn pollen!
I grafted 3 quince seedlings with Smyrna this spring and I think all the buds are flower buds. 
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Even tho they looked quite un-spur like when I grafted them. All I can do at this point is pick them off and see if some other tissue wants to function as a tree.
This "tree" is so tiny I'm not sure tree is yet the right word. The main trunk is roughly pencil diameter from memory.
Its hard for me to imagine that allowing actual fruits to grow on it would work out, as tempting as it may be.
I guess part of my puzzlement is that the buds that have grown into "branches" 4 inches or so long, are now all capped with a flower bud.
I was all prepared to train these little branches into scaffolds thinking they would continue to extend. Now they have a fruit on the end of them, I don't know what to do or expect in terms of the form of the tree.
I imagine if I leave them there the limbs will droop WAY below horizontal. What will become of the leader? It terminal is about to bloom into a flower too? I'm having difficulty visualizing how this tree will grow if I leave it alone, or if I take action.
Most of the pruning/training books assume that you start from year old feathered whip. This thing started from a bench graft I made last year.
I knew quince was precocious, but this defies all expectation on my part.
plumfan, perhaps I'll consider experiments with pollination down the road. So far I've got other things in mind, like trying to successfully get some actual quince off of this thing. In fact, I was considering keeping this tree as a specimen of 1 variety. I'll see how long I can keep myself from making it a Frankenstein like most of my others.
p.s. this forum is kicking Gardenweb's butt in terms of responsiveness to my query.
i wouldn't let that quince have any fruit yet - sounds like it will snap in half if it tries to ripen fruit at those tiny tips. you'll get much better tree/root/structural establishment if you give it another year or two of growth rather than reproduction. patience! let the flowers open to see how gorgeous they are though - quince blooms unfurl like the finest roses.
Hey Jafarj,
I agree with Karen. Some fruit trees are permanently stunted when they fruit too much too early. I also think that a growing a large quince fruit could rip out your graft, particularly on a day with strong wind and penduluming fruit. That's one of the reasons I've been doing experiments with grafting crabapples onto aronia and flowering quince. Mine have flowered and I might get fruit this year, but I'm not worried about tearing the plant apart.
My two cents,
John S
PDX OR
[quote="Marsha":1gmn4kay]Oh my... How tall is that little tree now? I think it's got more blossoms than my hacked-to-10' apple on M111 had this year.
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Okay, I eyeballed it yesterday and it is still just under 4' tall. Its tiny. Its pretty much in full bloom now. If I remember I'll try to take another picture this weekend.
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
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