North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] (No Subject)

Are you sure your neighbor has true Bradford?  Pure P. calleryana has fruit not much larger than a pea that are quite hard.  Sounds like the neighbor tree may be a hybrid of some sort.  If you want to use the seed, just clean it and put it in moist peat, in a bag, in the refrigerator.  After a month or so start checking for sprouting.  When you see small white roots emerge, it's time to pot the seed and grow the seedlings until you can set them out.   Or just go dig some root pieces of the old tree.  Plant them with the basal end (end that had been closest to the parent tree) right at the surface.  It should sucker and give you a small tree by year's end, larger than a seedling would be.
-Lon Rombough
> From: "philip sauber" <mrtejas@lycos.com>
> Organization: Lycos Mail  (http://www.mail.lycos.com:80)
> Reply-To: mrtejas@lycos.com, North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 11:34:12 -0500
> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [NAFEX] (No Subject)

> I am planning on planting some bradford pear for pear rootstock here near Houston, TX.  I assume that this is a good idea  since bradford is a selection of callary pear, the preferred fire blight resistant rootstock for the south.  A neighbor's tree has some fruit.  It is getting juicy now but the pulp is still adhering to the pit.  
>  
> Is now the time to plant the seeds or wait longer?  
> Is this a good rootstock for my area?
> How to prepare the seeds for planting?
> Plant now or in the spring?
>  
> Phil in Beaumont, TX z9a/sunset 28