Pears and Rootstock Trials: Spring Field Notes

top working russian pears onto saskatoon, z-grafts continue to be my goto for this. and I'm fluent in all the grafts availble ;) this really is the best option I know of. if the diameters match I switch to whip and tongue. sometimes I'll throw in a bark graft or a modified cleft.

double working pears, here is paul pear on saskatoon as an interstem, with favoritka red on top. it's experimental, but I've noticed some pears take off and grow more vigorously on saskatoon, and some of these could be interstems.

bolshaya pear full of flowers. It's grafted onto saskatoon, which can be precocious and it's dwarfing. I'm out grafting more pears this week.

couple of russian pears grafted in 2022 about to flower. excited to try them. one of the photos is the graft union on saskatoon, holding up well.

ussurian pear ready to transplant. the large pear seeds take off and grow quickly, I started some in community pots just to save on greenhouse space. pear is tricky to grow under lights or with close spacing, there's foliar disease that will turn the leaves black and defoliate if there isn't enough airflow, apples will get scab, pears get this. thinking I'll pot up and move them outside, even though we had ice on the pond this morning, a bit of frost should be fine, cold nights will slow them down but since they were started outside I think there's enough cold resistance

apples and pears ready to plant. the root cellar has been warming up so everybody is awake and taking off. I think there’s maybe 500 trees here, didn’t really count them. 6x6 spacing in a 3 ft x 20 ft bed is about 250 in a bed, so 2 beds. #grafting #propagation #applegrafting

bark grafts on an old pear tree, top worked two years ago from ussurian pear. It’s mostly a tree to grow out scion wood. I don’t usually make cuts so large but they’ll eventually heal over.

ussurian pear grafted on saskatoon in 2022 flowering in it’s third year.

field grafting pears onto saskatoon #grafting. going back to paint the stumps before it rains, the parafilm is ok but not sealed enough

ussurian pears, siberian crabapples an interesting wild small fruited one, wax currants (ribes cereum)

ussurian pears on about day 7 from germination are getting their first leaves. growing pears in pots indoors can be tricky, I always seem to get some fabraea leaf spot, aka leaf blight, black spot. pear inside usually completely die from it after growing a few sets of healthy leaves, outside it’s less of an issue. first time trying them in a greenhouse. good air circulation helps, clean medium helps, and probably a spray bottle of captan will help.

night grafting with a headlamp. I’ve had a few late nights working around the nursery with these bright led headlamps. Here I’m working over some tall saskatoon to russian pears at around shoulder height to stay above the browse line. #grafting

bench grafting russian pears in my kitchen this morning. #grafting

pear seeds after three weeks in stratification, good thing I checked they’re supposed to need sixty days. my fridge is at 1-2 C (34F) and these germinated in the cold.

wild rootstock project continues, we’re grafting plums onto choke cherry and pears onto saskatoon. (prunus virginiana and amelanchier alnifolia) .. selecting vigorous previous year growth, 12-36”. the goal is to find the most graft compatible zone 3 hardy species/cultivars. there are some good candidates, we’re working not just different cultivars but different species of prunus - all of which are known to have some compatibility but have not been fully explored or studied in our climate and for our hobbyist / food forest application. this also serves as a reserve of scion wood for next year when we’ll have many more typical pear and plum rootstocks ready to graft onto. #grafting #permaculture

Apple on Saskatoon graft. In late summer well past grafting season I grafted onto about a dozen small trees, happy to see most are leafing out. Saskatoon is in the Rosacea family with apples and pears and has been used experimentally as a dwarfing rootstock for them. There’s some conventional wisdom that pears will work, but few reports about Malus. This is an excellent result and will be followed up on. #grafting

Russian pear grafted into wild Saskatoon #grafting #backyardnursery #fruittreenursery #orchard #backyardorchard

first #peartree #blossoms of the year have appeared in the nursery orchard #blossom . #fruittreenursery #fruittrees #backyardnursery