Is this a wild pear???

[greyphase]

It's growing in a fence row on land that I bought from my Grandfather. Still holding most all of it's fruit. Very little insect or disease damage.

Here's the bark.

And here's a pic of it and a wild crab growing beside it.

If it is a wild pear I just might order a few pear rootstocks and graft it for some wildlife feed.

 

[huntall]

Yes it looks like it is. What size are the pear fruit?

 

[greyphase]

They are only about an inch in diameter.

 

[huntall]

They are only about an inch in diameter.

Yep....thats good though. My brother had one like that and it held pears way into the winter and lots of pears! Deer loved them. that tree is dead now ,and i planted some wild pears in hope to get the same kind of results. I planted 5 wild pears in one spot.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Good looking pear. And a crab growing next to it? One stop shopping for the critters. I'll take a couple fence-rows like that !!!

 

[SD51555]

I'm jealous. I bought a half dozen this spring and went the hard way with them (tube, stake, mat, pea rock etc). They never broke bud. That's when this community taught me about sweating stock before putting it out. Itasca had them for a reasonable price in plugs.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Not many pears are reccomended for zone 4 or colder. A bummer for you northern guys.

 

[SD51555]

I was hopeful. I bought Ussurian Pears from Itasca. I did a little reading on them and they were supposed to be a russian native hardy to zone 2. In hindsight, you're probably still right Stu. I think last winter we tested the limit of plant hardiness on everything.

 

[SD51555]

Hell, we probably even fell below the zone guidelines some of those weeks last winter.

 

[SD51555]

I've kicked around getting another half dozen and potting them and putting in my window sill for a month or two until I could be certain they'd break bud and get going. All the stuff is there for them, I just have to pull back the pea rock, weed mat, and tube and plunk the new ones in. Would need a slightly larger hole though. Maybe I could use some quart mile cartons cut down to give the plug enough room to expand each direction an inch while I get them going.

 

[SD51555]

Scratch that. Itasca is showing they are out until September '15. Maybe fall planting would be the ticket.

 

[Don'tWorryIHuggedItFirst]

If you want grafted pear that are supposed to be hardy there are few choices. Early Gold is rated zone 2 to 7. Golden Spice and Ure are both zone 3 to 7.

 

[Don'tWorryIHuggedItFirst]

I think Ure is a ussurian cross of some sort.

I believe you are right.

"Ure is an interspecific cross between pyrus ussuriensis and pyrus communis. It was discovered at the Morden research station in Manitoba."

Early Gold is an improved seedling of Ure.