I need help with grafted pears

[KY wild]

I have grafted apple trees the last few years with great success and great fun by using advice from this forum. This year I decided to graft 20 pears and 30 apple trees, 48 out of 50 grafts took and has several leaves and growth. I put 10 grafts in each 5 gallon bucket, in potting soil and left until nice growth was present then 3 days ago I replanted 2 buckets into individual cloth pots for the summer. The 10 apples as usual did not act shocked and continue to flourish while the 10 pears look like total crap, the pears wilted down immediately and has not changed. They don't look like they will recover. What did I do wrong? How can a I transplant the other 10 pears still in one bucket? I need advice on these pears?

 

[g squared 23]

My success rate bench grafting pears has been abysmal despite using identical technique (even on the same day) as bench grafting apples. My guess is I had rootstock with viral or disease issues that ruined the batch. Top-working pears has been much more successful for me.

I’ll be interested to see what others think.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Hoytvectrix]

Maybe you are waiting a little too long to put them into pots? I'm literally on my first year of bench-grafting so I'm sure others will have more informed opinions. It's my understanding that the grafts should really callous in 45-60 degree temps for several weeks and once leaves start forming to transfer them to pots under natural light. Maybe the grafts are not fully calloused? Based on what you're describing, the plants produced too much top growth that could not be supported by the root system. Any chance they dried out when transferring them to pots?

Maybe hydrate the root systems when transferring them to soil by letting them soak for 20 mins to an hour?

 

[homerj]

It's almost always beneficial to grow out pear rootstocks for a year before grafting.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

When to put bench grafts outside (apples+pears)

The reason for covering is to preserve the limited stored energy in the scion, remember it got its energy stored as sugars doing photosynthesis! It cannot replace any energy until callousing is complete and the xylem/ Phloem plant cells are connected thru the graft union. When callousing is...

growingfruit.org

I went back and forth on whether I would plant the pears in the field first or not and elected to try a bench graft this spring. If that fails, you can potentially t-bud in the summer or just plant in the field/pots and graft them next spring.

 

[gunfun13]

It's odd, I have much higher success with apples bench grafting, but much higher success with pears T budding.