North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

There are many cases of asymmetric compatibility like this, for example 
Japanese plums generally work well on Euro plum stock but not well 
vice-versa, and apricots work on peaches but not vice-versa.  It is an 
asymmetric relationship in terms of the flow of sap so that must have 
something to do with it, but I never heard a good scientific explanation.

Scott

On Mar 26, 2012, at 10:46 PM, Steve wrote:

> I agree that the result is surprising. Not what I would have expected.
> 
> 
> On 3/26/2012 10:26 PM, Jim Fruth wrote:
>>     A friend has a wild pear (pyrus spp.) that bears inedible fruit.  To
>> help him out, I grafted scionwood from my pears onto his wild pear.  His
>> tree accepted all of my grafts.  Several of those grafts were from my Ure
>> Pear.  When I saw the abundance of edible fruit on his tree, I grafted his
>> wild pear scionwood onto my Ure but the Ure rejected all grafts.  That is
>> curious:  How can scions be accepted onto a tree whose scions are rejected
>> by the other?  I guess that is one of the mysteries of Nature.
>> 
>> Jim Fruth
>> Brambleberry Fruit Farm
>> 4002 Davis Street
>> Pequot Lakes, MN  56472