North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[nafex <nafex@mokalive.com>]

the neighbor said it was a Red Hawthorn, the state tree of Missouri. He says
they sucker some so I hope to get a few to see how the doo. I'll sure to the
group if I have any luck.



> 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.

-- 
Ronda Anderson
Lawton, Kansas
Zone 6a