North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

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

Le 22:29 2014.03.13, vous avez écrit:
> I've
>  been playing around for a few years with grafting pears onto the many
> hawthorn seedlings coming up in my old hayfield turned orchard. I've
> found that many European pears are compatible 
> (all that I've tried actually) , though not all, and all
> asians attempted have been failures. I'm not sure what the mature trees
> will look like exactly, but after 3 years of growth on some, I've observed a
> tendency toward unbranched cordon growth pattern with some varieties
> showing very short inter-nodes. It looks like 
> there will be a pronounced dwarfing effect. This 
> year, I'm going to graft a bunch
> with Old Home interstems so I can hopefully then graft asians too.
> [snip...]
>
> I'm curious if anyone has longer term experience 
> to share and would appreciate any information anyone could provide.

Devin,
I did quite a few trials of pear on apple and 
pear on crataegus grafts some 25 years ago. I did 
have some of these grafts live long enough to 
fruit - actually it was quite a conversation 
piece when I got my first pears from an apple 
tree - people were almost shocked to see this!
However, I have to tell you that all these grafts 
eventually died. The longest lived was 10 years. 
Hence, better to consider crataegus (or apple) 
only as a temporary support until you get other 
support that would have better long term compatibility.
Sorry if this comes as deceptive for you...
Claude Jolicoeur