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  • From: anton ptak <antonptak@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [nafex] revisiting quince
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:52:35 -0600

Has anyone any success grafting quince onto OHF or other pear rootstocks?

I would like to try some of the quince varieties from the germplasm repository, but from what I understand the commercially available quince rootstocks are not hardy enough for our Zone 4 site. Hence, the search for another understock option . . . .

I ran across a message in the archives (pasted below) from 2002 and was wondering if Lucky had tried what he proposed and if so, the results of that trial.


Thanks,
Anton Ptak
Zone 4a W. Wisconsin

Lucky,
There was a multi-stemmed volunteer bush in the backyard. The leaves looked
very similar to a hawthorn growing in the front yard - so I guessed it
was a hawthorn. I had scions of three pears - including Magness and Warren -
and grafted all onto it. As well as a seedling Quince a Michigan
NAFEXer had sent me. They all took, and suvived. Last year my ''hawthorn''
started bearing crabapples, and the leaves on the maturing bush stopped
looking like hawthorn and started looking like crabapple. By now only one
pear scion, a Magness survives. The Quince is still on there, and
survives better than the pears, but hasn't flowered or borne fruit. I still
haven't found anything to graft the Quince off of the crabapple onto
something else, because I don't have any other quince.
Yes, I'd go ahead and graft your Quince onto pear and hawthorn, if it can
survive with me on crabapple, it should at least survive and possibly
thrive on pear or hawthorn.
Charlie Paradise
Massachusetts

Lucky Pittman wrote:

In the past, we've discussed grafting pear cultivars onto quince &/or
hawthorn rootstocks, but does anyone have any experience doing the reciprocal?

A friend sent me some "Aromatnaya" quince scions - but I have no quince
seedlings to work them onto - plenty of pear & hawthorn, but no quince. I
wondered if anyone had any words of encouragement - I've already grafted
scions onto a couple of pears and a hawthorn, so if you're gonna warn me
not to, don't waste your time typing 8>)

Progress report of sorts: 3 years ago, I grafted "Ayers" pear onto what I
had purchased as a seedling pear rootstock, but last spring, after closer
examination, I determined that it was an apple seedling. The 3-yr old
graft, an unbranched whip only about 4 ft tall, bloomed profusely this
spring. If it escapes frost/freeze damage, I suspect I'll have to thin
pretty severely. I did cut scions off it this spring to re-graft onto a
known pear rootstock, in the event that it doesn't survive long on it's
apple root.

Lucky Pittman
USDA Zone 6
Hopkinsville, KY








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