Pear Seedling Rootstock Source?

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The callery pear rootstock I got from Willis did great. One thing I learned this year is scion condition means alot. I grafted some crossbow on anty. I left a few branches on the tree and grafted then almost right away. Those grafts are easily twice the height of any others.

 

[Dantana]

This experience is foreign to me versus tending to potted apple tree bench grafts. About another ten percent of the pear grafts finally woke up this week. That's two months after I bench grafted them. With apples, I'm usually surprised when one or two wake up this late.

Any updates?

 

[PoorSand]

Dantana: My apologies for not responding earlier. I hadn't been on here in a while. I had a 66% success rate. The ones I potted in nursery mix are generally in the 3' - 5' height range now. The ones that I potted in mulch are generally in the 2' - 4' height range.

 

[PoorSand]

I plan to plant the successes when the ground surface starts freezing overnight and thawing during the daytime.

As to the non-successes, I plan to remove them from their pots after they lose their leaves, plant them together bareroot in an enclosure by my house, dig them back up when the ground thaws in spring, use scions from my successful grafts to benchgraft onto them, and then repot them for next summer.

 

[PoorSand]

By variety, the success rates were:

Dr. Deer​	40%​
Ely​	100%​
Gilmore Christmas	86%​
Honey Sweet	20%​
Malus	100%​
Ms. Laneene	71%​
Rifle Deer	18%​
Sweet Advent	71%​
Winter Deer	85%​

The Rifle Deer Pear tree I cut the scions off looked sickly all year, so that may have had something to do with the low success rate for that variety.

 

[gjs4]

I thought i had this figured out using the stumps of the many callery/bradford i had been "blessed" with. Nothing took....

 

[Lucky_P]

I have more 'volunteer' callery seedlings than I could ever get grafted, much less dug and transplanted, but if I need a pear somewhere, I've got something that will suffice, at any time.
Granted, I mostly only graft onto established rootstocks, and not ones that I've just procured and planted, but pears are, to me, the easiest, most forgiving of anything I've ever grafted. I exaggerate that... you can throw pear scions at the roostock and they'll take, or, that, if you get roostock and scion together in the same room, they'll take... and yes it is an exaggeration, but not much of one.

20 years back, I experimented with putting a 10-inch interstem of OHxF513 (65% standard, compatible with Euro & Asian pears, without Pear Decline being an issue) between seedling callery rootstock and about 20 different fruiting pear varieties - Euro, Asian, sand pear hybrids. I put the 513 interstem and fruiting scion togetherl as a unit, then stuck them on top of the callery rootstock. All took flawlessly.
The OHxF513 conferred no dwarfing whatsoever, that I could ascertain.

 

[gjs4]

Lucky- what are your favorite scions for deer (hunting related pears)?

 

[Lucky_P]

Kieffer, Galloway, Walnut Hill(-a really late one i found in AL), and i have another that someone sent...a named variety, but I've lost ID on it, so i just call it Very Late. Shinko has bern a great producer, and the deer like it in my orchard.
All are finished by Oct 1 here, except Walnut Hill, which will still be holding & dropping fruit in January

 

[PoorSand]

Here is what I think the new growth of each variety turned out to be on average. The numbers are in feet and based on eyeball estimates. Sweet Advent was the most vigorous.

Sweet Advent	3.5​
Malus	3.0​
Ely	2.5​
Ms. Laneene	2.5​
Gilmore Christmas	2.0​
Rifle Deer	2.0​
Winter Deer	2.0​
Dr. Deer	1.5​
Honey Sweet	1.0​

 

[PoorSand]

The sweet advent leaves are now displaying their fall colors. Their display is as colorful as sugar maples.

The malus pear leaves have so far turned purple.

Everything else is still green.

 

[PoorSand]

My observations on Honey Sweet:
- Only one of the five grafts I did were successful.
- The one successful graft broke off now six months later while I was simply moving the pot.