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Callery pear mutation
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Posted by
ClarkinKS 5 (
My Page) on
Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 16:14
| A friend mentioned a location with wild pears on his property and asked me to hike out there and determine what they were. The pears were as expected callery pears but that was when the surprises started. Typically the species has pea sized fruit and in some locations (not Kansas ) they become invasive. These trees for the most part were typical callery pears except for one tree which is shown in this photo. What are your thoughts on this? Have you seen one with larger fruit? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| The fruit of Typical callery pears look like this picture |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| This is another picture of the larger callery pear |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| Clark This tree may be a seedling of a cross and the bird or other animal helps spreading the seed. Tony |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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Tony,
Normally when callery cross with other pears the callery are dominant in all cases I've seen except this one. It makes sense that in this case it's a hybrid exhibiting the characteristics of both parents. Callery are very disease resistant which is why I'm paying attention when I see this kind of thing. If the fruit were two or three times that size it's possible that a disease resistant (fireblight resistant or immune) variety could be developed. I may scout those woods further when I get more time and see if a larger variety exists. There are about a dozen trees and no new seedlings at that location. Its likely they could be sterile hybrids or it could just be we don't have enough water here to allow callery pears to thrive. I suspect over time they will continue to adapt even to the dryer parts of our state. Are callery a problem in Nebraska Tony? |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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On a walk with my daughter yesterday afternoon, I encountered one not unlike the one you pictured, Clark.
Growing on a neighbor's place - I've been watching it for years - has a distinctly weeping habit - thought one of the previous owners *might* have planted it as a specimen tree, but I'm not certain of that. Anyway, I noticed the fruits for the first time yesterday - heavily russeted elongate fruits - not yet ripe.
If it's not some Asian pear species other than callery, I'd have to think it's a hybrid. |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| Clark We don't have any problem with Callery pear yet. I do have some small seedlings popping under my Callery pear. Tony |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| Lucky_p that's interesting perhaps it's a different variety of callery I'm not familiar with. Tony I'm glad to here they have not been a problem there.Do you use them for rootstock? |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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There are other non-edible pear species, introduced from Asia, like P.salicifolia; will have to look at the local tree, I'm not sure that it's 'willow-leafed'. May only be a hybrid of callery with another pear - there are a couple of older Seckel-type pears 2 houses up the road, and I have 30-40 different pears growing here...
Callery seedlings are everywhere here. I use some for rootstocks, others I just prune at ground level and hit 'em with Tordon. |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| 30-40 wow! Let me know what those wind up being if you find out. |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| Clark, Yes, I used them as rootstocks. I normally graft an Euro or Asian pear scions on them where they are at and move them to a final location the following spring. Tony |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| We do the same here Tony. I was once told they could not survive zone 5 winters but I suspect the wild ones could go a zone or two colder. Thanks for the information you all provided. I suspect we will see this pear continue to adapt to our environment. Larger fruit would be a interesting. |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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Clark - that's 30 or more named varieties - not all as free-standing trees of their own - some just a branch here and there in larger trees; a couple of multi-variety trees with 6 or more on trial...If I don't like them, or they don't work here, no sense in dedicating space to whole tree of it.
With 4 kids, we planted a big orchard - and I'm an obsessive plant collector; unfortunately, now that things are big, and producing heavily...all the kids are gone. Critters get most of the fruit, or it just rots on the ground. I don't have time or space to harvest/store it - and as round as I am, I don't need to be consuming all that sugar! I give away all I can, but far too many folks nowadays don't want to touch something that's not grocery-store perfect. |
RE: Callery pear mutation
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| Lucky_p maybe you can donate some pears to homeless shelters etc. To much fruit sounds great! Multiple scions grafted to one tree seems smart to me as we do some of that ourselves. Some trees take grafts better than others and some scions are more compatible than others so sometimes 3-4 varieties on one tree is part of the process. The hard to find pear varieties such as Madame boutant I grafted this spring to an easy to graft mature tree to grow more scion wood for whip grafts next spring. The rind grafts grow out scion wood very fast from a mature tree that's been cut back as your aware. Fruit cocktail trees are great for pollination etc. |
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