Kitchen Garden Forum

My pear produced a shoot from the root which had different leaves, it came away with some root attached. Are pears always grafted on quince ? Do I now have a quince tree if it takes ok - I have potted it up and its looking fine.

Yes, pears are grafted onto quince, and yes you do now have a quince tree. But not one that is worth having unless you want ot graft other pear varieties. Rootstock quinces do not fruit usefully (i'm not certain if they fruit at all). For a fruiting quince you're better with a named variety such as Vranja. You are right to remove quince suckers from your pear; they can overwhelm a tree if left unchecked.

yes I knew it had to come off - but knew very little about quince rootstocks
thank you Felix. It does seem quite vigorous and grew rapidly, hopefully next years crop will be better for its removal

hope this helps re-pear rootstocks..... QUINCE A is the most common and will enable you to grow a pear tree at maturity somewhere between 3m to 6m (9ft to 19ft). Regular pruning can keep the tree to size you want within that range. Very fertile soils will produce larger and quicker growing trees compared to less fertile soils. Fruit will appear after 5 years.

QUINCE C is less common but still readily available. At maturity the tree will be 3m to 5m (9ft to 16ft), not a great size difference compared to Quince A. Pear trees on Quince C are slightly quicker to produce fruit but the difference will only be one year. Much depends on the pear tree variety. In general, fruit will appear after 4 to 5 years.

Hi NB,
Pears are exceedingly difficult to graft because not all pear wood is compatible. With certain varieties you have to double graft.
If you look at the graft area on the pear tree sometimes you can very clearly see the double graft.
A single graft may take but the tree will probably snap in the first heavy gale and this is why an intermediary wood that is compatible with both rootstock and scion wood has to be used.
JB.

amended to make sense!