This topic has me confused. I bought a sturdy looking hybrid pear on Quince. I think the tag said it would reach 15 or 20 feet tall. I may be misremembering that.
I have checked numerous web sites about pear rootstock.
It looks like quince is not a good choice because of delayed incompatibility. One WA site stated quince is not cold hardy. I wonder if that is for Eastern WA. It seems weird if quince trees are hardy here but not quince rootstock. Actually, if the tree only lasts 8 or 10 years that is probably ok, as long as it bears a few bowls of fruit between now and 2025. A nice bowl of pears most years would be good.
John, my google search came up with an old forum topic of yours, 2005. It looked like your pears were reaching their expiration date then. Do you recall how they did?
I have an Asian pear unknown variety on unknown rootstock, doing very well. It has a sucker with pear-like foliage and thorns. Maybe I should try to root that and graft onto it as a backup tree
I saw that quince is also susceptible to fireblight. I wonder how that works. If it is not allowed to sucker and grow leaves, can the rootstock itself get fireblight?
I think the main problem is I think too much about this stuff.
I both have plants that were grafted commercially onto quince rootstock and pears (and other fruit) that I grafted onto quince. The pear that I bought that was grafted onto quince was interesting. It grew and produced pears, but the pears on the branches that were incompatible with quince all fell off before maturing. The only one that grew good pears was Comice, which is compatible. I chopped all of the varieties except comice and grafted more varieties onto it and it should be good for the other compatible varieties as well, or to graft other pears onto the comice.
John S
PDX OR
John, thanks for the info about your experience. I guess this one is wait and see. This tree actually had a tiny pear on a branch when I bought it. Maybe a good sign. Since there are some spurs, maybe it will tell me this year if it will produce. This is Maxie pear, a hybrid of Red Bartlett and Neijiseiki.
Yours must be cold hardy enought for our area, if it survived the historic winter 2 years ago.
Daniel, my first job out of college was hiring pickers for Harry and David fruit company (in Medford, OR), and they have been growing their Royal Riviera pears (just their fancy name for Comice) on quince for many decades. The orchard manager told me that their pears on quince were slightly bigger and better tasting than on any other rootstock. The pears they sell in gift boxes have a min/max size, so during the picking season the workers would bring me oversized pears to take home--some nearly 2 pounds.
You'll notice that many of the older French pear varieties are quince compatible--I imagine that was one of their requirements, or at least one of their goals, in breeding. England adopted the practice of using quince as rootstocks, so many of the popular English varieties are also compatible, and quince rootstocks still dominate over there.
My pears on quince are still too young to give first hand info about delayed incompatibility, but I can attest to successful bud takes on varieties known to be compatible. My choice for an interstem, when necessary, is Beurre Hardy. I suspect that most of the accounts of graft failures are from areas that test the cold-hardiness of quince, or due to faulty variety selection or virus-infected scionwood. Western Washington and the Willamette Valley are definitely within a safe temp. zone for quince (the pear repository in Corvallis is also a quince repository).
We have almost zero fireblight in the Willamette Valley, but I've heard you have some issues in W. Washington. Fireblight can travel within the tissue of the tree down to the rootstock, but I think as long as your quince rootstock isn't suckering (mine don't), you wouldn't get direct infection there.
Some of the OHxF (actually OHxBartlett, but that's another story) rootstocks approach the precocity and dwarfing potential of quince, so they may be your best bet with less risk, but I'll keep growing some varieties on quince for low, wet areas, super-precocious fruiting, and tradition.
Good post, El Mango.
Yes, I sometimes forget that the quince rootstocks do better in wetter soils. Mostly I just use them because when I'm thinking of grafting or budding something, I've got quince rootstocks around because every time I prune my quince tree, I stick them in the ground and get a free new tree the next year. Works though.
John S
PDX OR
These are really helpful and thoughtful responses! Thanks John and El Mango. I think my tree on quince should be OK. This is not info I could have found elsewhere.
John, That's interesting how easily quince grow. I have an Aromatnaya on order for Spring. Now I know what to do with any potential prunings.
El Mango, my fire blight has not been bad, although there have been a few stems damaged. Maybe it's not fireblight, but rather Pseudomonas? I'm not expert.
This year will be interesting. Such a mild winter so far. I hope bloom isn't too early then frosted.
DanielW said
...El Mango, my fire blight has not been bad, although there have been a few stems damaged. Maybe it's not fireblight, but rather Pseudomonas? I'm not expert...
I think you may be on to something there. I've been surprised that you've had such reported problems with fireblight as I haven't known it to be a problem locally.
John, good to know that I can relax my propagation protocol for quince--I think I've been overdoing it with IBA, bottom heat, etc. Seems like I learn something from nearly every one of your posts.
And Daniel, I've learned a lot from your posts (and blog) as well. Your willingness to experiment and share your results is appreciated. I'm a bit of a geek in some areas, so I'll try to give back where I can. And I'm curious to see how that Maxie pear turns out - interesting idea for a hybrid.
I'm keeping an eye on fireblight because with global weirding, who knows when it's going to become a bigger problem here in the Willamette Valley. Symptoms are similar to pseudomonas, but one requires cool wet weather and the other requires warm, wet weather. Also the species/cultivars affected can be a good diagnostic indicator. Of course, a fella could have both...
I call pseudomonas "ice blight" because it spreads in cool weather and promotes frost/freeze damage to plant tissues (clever little beasty). Mostly affects cherries and stone fruit, but also devastates asian pear. Comice is susceptible and a few apple varieties.
For Fireblight, there are lots of complex algorithms out there, but basically you need a minimum of 3 days with warm humid weather - min. 65 during the day and over 55 at night and humidity greater than 60% for the organism to multiply on the flower stigmas. After that, you need a rain or a super-dew to wash the bacteria into the flower nectaries so the disease can spread to the plant. Any actual fireblight experts please chime in.
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