Pears and Rootstock Trials: Fall Field Notes

rootstock stoolbeds, one is b118 with the dark purple bark, and the other is ottawa3 . most of my rootstocks are seedlings, but stoolbeds are easy and convenient, they make a larger caliper shoot in the first year, the root system is smaller and more fibrous , you get the benefits of the clonal stock, some dwarfing, disease resistance, uniformity. you can start small, our ottawa3 bed started with 2 trees this spring. it made 4 good shoots, which I replanted, so now there's 6 stools and the 2 established ones should produce heavier next year. and so on. also doing this with ohxf87, though pear is more fickle.. with the upside that I was able to easily root some softwood, so if the grafts survive a zone 3 winter, might be lots of ohxf stocks in a couple years. btw ussurian does not root easily, I gave up on vegetative propagation with it, luckily we're flush with seeds. one day i'll have a renewable supply of hundred of pear stocks to graft, for this season it's fewer. if only i could buy them at some reasonable cost in canada.. americans have an under appreciated bounty of cheap rootstocks available to them that we do not up here.

ussurian pear started in large plug trays. They can be a bit tricky to grow in trays or beds so I've had better luck in the first year as a plug. some of these are large enough to graft next spring, though most I think should grow another year in the ground. i'm growing 20:1 apples just because of rootstock availability in Canada, for zone 3 pears. basically they need to be seedlings, and basically you need to grow them yourself. I'm going to try some varied trays and small beds next spring as well, since stooling ussurian didn't produce results . some ohxf87 is possible though it's more of a zone 4 stock.

hedge cotoneaster, collected fruit today. I root these from softwood, but seed might be easier aside from the extended stratification needed, one month or more warm then 4 months cold. this plant is super interesting as a dwarfing pear rootstock, it has good long term compatibility. I'm planning to make it one of our pear rootstocks.

ussurian pear, filled some crates this morning. need to get some beds planted this fall for rootstocks

krazulya pear, just one small one on the graft. a few of our pears have red leaves after a crazy heat wave this week.

collecting scion wood from this old pear tree. I top worked it over to different varieties a couple of years ago and now it’s good for saving these genetics and producing material for grafting every year.

shmaven helping with the pear stoolbed. So seedling ussurian pears didn’t root with the setup, maybe I should be using ohxf. to savage I left a root cutting for each in place, and collect some rootstocks but not as many as if the shoots had rooted. next summer will try painting the new growth with iba or iba+naa and using drip tape to keep the sawdust from drying out. and well, also planting new beds of seedlings. it takes 2 years to get a pear seedling up to size so far, and zone 3 hardy pear rootstocks are tricky to stoolbed it seems #stoolbed

kinda tasty, these pears have been ripening on the ground. sure the texture is a bit grainy but the flavour has some bright fruity taste going along with pear, I could see making something with them.

ussurian pears covering this old road. I filled some bags, this is my pear rootstock in the nursery and it’s ideal to find local seeds. I’ll have more than enough this fall to add them to our seed shop. #wildlpear #ussurianpear

ussurian pear stoolbed just about dormant, it’s the first year and I started mid summer so will see if it worked. hard frosts all week here

lifting more trees today, in order: Nanking cherry, ussurian pear. Most these we’ll grow for a second year, some I think are big enough to offer on our site this winter. #bareroot #bareroottrees #treenursery

some apples in our pears, easy to sort out when the colors change