BEHAVIOR OF ‘CONFERENCE’ PEAR, SELF-ROOTED OR GRAFTED ON DIFFERENT ROOTSTOCKS

A trial to investigate the possibility of using self-rooted ‘Conference’ pear tree was planted in February of 1989 with the variety rooted from hardwood cuttings (‘SR-HC’) or micropropagated (‘SR-MP’), jointly with trees on ‘Quince A EM’ (‘Q A’), ‘Quince Provence INRA BA-29’ (‘Q BA-29’) and on commercial seedling.

After six harvests (1991–96), the heaviest bearing to date was on ‘Q BA-29’, which cumulatively yielded 97 kg/tree followed by on ‘Q A’ and ‘SR-HC’ with 80 kg/tree, on seedling with 71 kg/tree and finally ‘SR-MP’ with 61 kg/tree.
The lowest yield obtained, so far, with the self-rooted ‘Conference’ propagated in vitro can be partially explained by the small plants used in the trial at planting.

The productivity (cumulative yield/trunk-cross sectional area) of the different combinations rates as follow: 1,78 kg/cm² for ‘SR-HC’, 1,5 kg/cm² on ‘Q A’ and ‘Q BA-29, 1,22 kg/cm² for ‘SR-MP’ and 0,64 kg/cm² on ‘Seedling’.

The average size of fruits in the last four crops (93–96) has been measured, showing significant differences among the treatments, larger fruit size of fruits on both quinces than in self-rooted trees or grafted on seedling.

With the data obtained so far in this trial, we can conclude that, regarding the calculated productivity, ‘Conference’ pears can be successfully cultivated on their own roots; however, the expected fruit size will be in the range of that obtained on seedling rootstocks.

VII International Symposium on Pear Growing

M. Carrera, J. Gómez-Aparisi

Pyrus communis, self-rooted cultivars, rootstock performance

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1998.475.17