PERFORMANCE OF PYRUS ROOTSTOCKS IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

A field trial was planted in 2004 at three locations in North America: Geneva, New York, USA; Rockland, Nova Scotia, Canada; and Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The trials compared three Pyrus rootstocks: Old Home × Farmingdale (OHF) 97, OHF87 and Pyrodwarf with ‘Taylor’s Gold Comice’ and ‘Concorde’ pear as the scion cultivars.
After 10 years, ‘Concorde’ trees at Geneva on OHF97 were the largest while trees on OHF87 and Pyrodwarf were the smaller.
At Rockland the same trend was apparent but the differences were not significant while at Kentville, which was an organic site the order of tree size was reversed.
With ‘Taylor’s Gold’ OHF87 was generally larger than OHF97. With ‘Concorde’, cumulative yield at Geneva and Rockland was greatest on OHF97 while at the organic site (Kentville) OHF97 had the lowest yield.
With ‘Taylor’s Gold’ there were no significant differences in yield among the tree rootstocks at the three sites.
Cumulative yield of ‘Taylor’s Gold’ was very low compared with ‘Concorde’. At Geneva, OHF87 had the largest fruit size for ‘Concorde’ while at Rockland OHF97 had the largest fruit size and at Kentville there were no significant differences in fruit size.
With ‘Taylor’s Gold’ OHF87 had the largest fruit size at Geneva while at Rockland both OHF97 and OHF87 had large fruit size.
At Kentville there were no differences in fruit size.
There were no significant difference in yield efficiency among rootstocks at any of the 3 sites or with either cultivar.
Root suckers were highest with Pyrodwarf.

XII International Pear Symposium

T.L. Robinson, S. Blatt, C. Embree

Pyrus communis, yield, fruit size, yield efficiency, root suckers

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2015.1094.16