Grafting onto the cursed Callery Pears – the Problem is the Solution

Big win for 2025:

I bark grafted and cleft grafted Asian pears and European pears onto the cursed Callery pears, the spiny rootstock of Bradford pears taking over my pasture.

10 months later, the Turnbull has 10 feet (!) of growth on it and is wider than 2X my thumb.

The Asian pears are also 5-6 feet of growth.

Callery pears are nearly impossible to get rid of. Then late Winter last year, my apple guy said, “You could graft onto those and you will have fruit and a full orchard in 2 years.”

These will fruit in 1 more year (as opposed to 4-5 years if I grafted it onto new rootstock).

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I am a guy who grows chestnuts in Kansas, where we can go from 33 degrees to 96 in two days. Sometimes it feels like the odds are against me.

I write about building a real life instead of borrowing one.

Skills Over Stuff. Plant trees. Grow food. Build community.

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Seeds (and trees) have a memory. They remember the place they came from – in Kansas it is those brutal winters, scorching summers, lack of rain for long periods of time.

New York may be Zone 5, but it is not Midwest Zone 5.

So where are your trees and seeds from? And do they know where they’re going?

My Midwest Memory trees are adapted to the Midwest Zones 5-7.