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Will there be enough of this material available soon enough that we should 
start planning to grow it, for grafting or just regional trials?


----Original Message Follows----
From: "Lon J. Rombough" <
To: North American Fruit Explorers <>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Pyrus Betulaefolia
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:28:30 -0700

Most of the commercial P. bet.  was originally collected from the southern 
part of the range and lacks winter hardiness.  There IS cold hardy material, 
from the northern part of the range that is hardy to -40 or more, but it's 
not  sold commercially.  I spent some time at the National Clonal Germplasm 
Repository at Corvallis, OR where the pear collection is kept and got a 
little seed of some of the cold hardy stuff.  I don't live in a cold area, 
but I sent some to Wayne Fuhr in Canada and he reported that the seedlings 
took some extremely cold temperatures with no more than a little tip damage 
to some of the shoots.   I have a few of the trees and most are small, 
almost shrubby things, with the tallest no more than about 12 to 15 feet 
tall.  That's the mature height.  They have potential as dwarf stocks, if 
not cold hardy stocks, if they were propagated.
-Lon Rombough