Pears and Rootstock Trials: Winter Field Notes

just a big handful of grafted pears available this winter. I'm working on ramping up rootstock production, but it's tough in Canada. ohxf87 is in the works, but it just doesn't work for us to buy them in, I haven't found a supplier for ussurian seedlings or ohxf87 at some reasonable wholesale rate. so I grow my own. ussurian pear seedlings, more so than siberian crabapple really do take an extra year or two produce a grafted tree. next summer I'm going to expand ohxf87 softwood propagation, and add in some experiment pear stocks, like cotoneaster and any see if any of our russian pears are candidates. pears essentially, don't stoolbed easily, at least the rootstocks that are cold hardy, but it seems some of them do root from softwood.

ussurian pears from a row of old trees, collected for seedling rootstocks. also called harbin pear after the region in siberia where hansen collected them in the early 1900s, and brought them back to SD for breeding work #pear #rootstock #seedsaving

ussurian pear in two lots, on the left imported from china and the right collected locally. the seeds are a little different, from genetic variation or more likely some hybridization.