North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>]

I have made a number of pear grafts on hawthorn. The graft that survived
for the longest time died in 2002 - it was grafted in 1991 and did produce
small crops of pears during 3-4 years. Some grafts died after only 2 or 3
years. I now consider this graft only as a temporary way to keep alive some
pear varieties if I don't have adequate stock handy.

It should be noted that there are several hundred species of hawthorns in
N.America, and some surely are more compatible than others with pears.
Also, compatibility may vary with pear variety. I would feel that pears
that have some oriental genes (ussuriensis / serotina) would be more
compatible, but I don't really have enough data to substantiate this.

To my knowledge, there has been no systematic study on the subject of
findind which species of hawthorn would have better compatibility. For
those of us that live in the cold North, such a study would be useful
because some hawthorns are hardy to zone 2 or maybe even to zone 1 - a
compatible combination could possibly give added hardiness to the grafted
pear variety.

Claude Jolicoeur, Quebec.
  
A 20:09 04.01.17 -0600, vous avez écrit :
>Hi All,
>
>I was talking to a neighbor who mentioned his grandfather had grafted a pear
>on a red hawthorn that is in his orchard and is over 100 years old.
>
>I'm wondering if this is possible? And do they make good rootstock? Are they
>useable with apples or anything else?
>
>-- 
>Ronda Anderson
>Lawton, Kansas
>Zone 6a
>