How to plant a pear?
The pear is one of the most useful and delicious fruit crops, which are very popular all over the world. A lot of gardeners and gardeners grow pears of various varieties in their gardens. When the pear trees become mature and fruitful, but at the same time not living up to the expectations of gardeners, it is time to graft them with improved shoots. Sometimes vaccination is required in other cases.
Before grafting a pear on your own, it is very important to find out when it is best to do this, as well as what more effective ways to do this are best used.
Why is vaccination necessary?
Trees need to be grafted in the following cases:
- when you need to cultivate a wild pear;
- to test a new type of wood or completely replace the old one;
- to obtain a more prolific and high-quality crop from one tree;
- to increase the life expectancy of the plant and the quality of its germination;
- when should the crown be restored;
- to ensure cross-pollination of several horticultural crops.
Pear grafting may also be required when there is a desire to renew trees, because, as a rule, this procedure will only benefit them.
Timing
The optimal time for grafting pear trees is the spring period, when young buds on the trees have not yet begun to bloom. When carrying out the vaccination procedure, almost 100% of the result can be achieved.If somehow it was not possible to graft the tree in the spring, then there is nothing to worry about, since this procedure is also allowed to be carried out in June and mid-July. Summer fruit grafting is almost as effective as spring grafting. However, it is very important to complete this kind of work before the end of summer, since it is in August that strong temperature drops are already noted, which does not have the best effect on the survival rate of shoots and the trees themselves.
If we are talking about the southern regions of tree growth, then the best time for grafting is best to choose spring. This is due to climatic conditions, according to many experts. It is in the spring in the southern parts of the country that the shoots take root best. In the northern regions, it is best to vaccinate no earlier than mid-April.
To determine the correct time for the procedure, it is very important to monitor the optimal air temperature. With minor temperature deviations at night, you can immediately begin the procedure.
Effective Ways
To date, gardeners know several ways to graft fruit trees. In order to understand the procedure in detail, one should consider the difference between the terms scion and rootstock used by gardeners.
The graft is a fresh stem cutting, most often from a young tree, that will be used to graft a pear. It is he who should take root on the tree chosen by the gardener, if all the conditions for grafting are met. A rootstock is a tree or plant on which the graft will be grafted. Basically, the lower part of the pear is chosen as the rootstock.
If a young tree with thin branches is chosen as a rootstock, care should be taken that the diameters of the cutting and rootstock (tree branches) match.
For the bark
Very often in the spring, trees are grafted precisely for the bark, and the pear is no exception. The bark grafting method should only be used if the width of the rootstock is greater than the width of the cutting to be grafted. To carry out this procedure, a small incision up to 5 cm should be made in the bark of a tree, where a pre-pointed cutting will need to be inserted.
In split
If the width of the bark of the rootstock is greater than the width of the scion itself, then it is best to graft the plant into a split. To a depth of 4-7 cm. You can insert not one, but several cuttings, on which appropriate cuts 3-5 cm long should be made in advance.
Both of these tree grafting methods are considered effective. You should choose one or the other based on the characteristics of the tree and the cutting, as well as on what result you are aiming for. Non-professional gardeners are advised to start grafting with a simple method called budding. Budding is the grafting of a small piece of bark with a kidney (or the so-called eye). This method is considered very unpretentious and ubiquitous.
Step-by-step instruction
Next, we will consider in more detail the step-by-step instructions for budding at home. It is she who allows you to get a very large amount of plant material for grafting.
It should be noted right away that it is best to carry out budding in the middle or end of July, sometimes the dates can be shifted to the beginning of August. As a rootstock, it is best to use a young pear planted in open ground.If you are just going to plant a stock, then it can be easily purchased from private gardeners or in specialized stores.
In order to be vaccinated, you should stock up on the following inventory:
- garden knife;
- hacksaw;
- garden pitch;
- polyethylene bags for wrapping the vaccine and a bandage tape (sometimes you can use electrical tape).
Vaccination must be done in a certain sequence.
- From a young tree (rootstock) you need to slightly remove, or rather, rake the soil. Then you need to cut off all the branches with a pruner to a height of about 10 cm from the ground.
- Next, wipe the part of the trunk from which the branches were cut with a slightly damp cloth. On the neck of the root, a T-shaped cut should be made no more than 5 cm long (with a sharp garden knife, you should first make a horizontal line, and then a vertical one below).
- The next step is to take the desired cutting. Mostly they take varietal pears, but sometimes even cuttings of apples to get a very unusual crop. A kidney with woody tissues (the so-called shield) should be cut from the handle.
- The shield should be cut off, doing it as carefully as possible. The knife should be applied at a distance of about 1.5-2 cm and driven downwards, cutting off the bud lightly with the bark and the upper woody layer of the plant.
- Further, in the cut made earlier on the scion, the bark should be slightly removed.
- In this incision, you need to carefully insert the kidney cut off with the bark without sudden movements. Press firmly with your hands and then wrap with a piece of polyethylene.
- The grafting site of the tree must be wrapped in such a way that a kidney is visible on it, and the shield itself is closed.
But also for beginners, you can try to make a slightly different budding.A neat side cut should be made on the stock, which will exactly match the size of the scion, then tie a shield with a kidney to it and wrap everything with polyethylene.
Aftercare
After a few weeks, the grafted tree should be examined. If on a young tree you can observe a previously grafted green, and not a dried bud, then this means that everything has taken root. A bandage made of polyethylene or sometimes of electrical tape should be removed in the fall, preferably at the end. But if, when you try to remove the bandage, you get the feeling that the kidney is not holding well, but at the same time it is green, it is best to leave it until spring.
After removing the bandage in the spring, the stock should be cut a little (just about a centimeter above the graft itself). The place of pruning is best smeared with horticultural pitch. In the spring and summer, the pear should be watered abundantly, but not poured so that there is water, loosen the soil near it and remove weeds. In the period before and after the engraftment of the pear tree, maximum care should be provided. If a young tree was grafted, then after 1 year it can be safely transplanted to a permanent place in the garden.
Only with proper care, the use of useful agricultural practices and regular feeding of the tree, you can get delicious pear fruits in a very short time.
Tips for beginner gardeners
The recommendations of experts will help to better understand the process of grafting trees, as well as allow gardeners and gardeners without experience to get a full and sometimes unusual pear crop in the shortest possible time.
It is strongly not recommended to graft trees with different fruit ripening periods, as this can seriously shorten the life of the plant, and its biological cycles will be disrupted. Some pears will appear earlier than others, while others, on the contrary, later, therefore, the tree will lose a lot of useful substances and die.
If an early pear is grafted with a late variety, then most likely the tree will bear fruit until the very cold weather, however, one should be careful with this technique, since the pear may freeze out.
Grafting pears with other trees is especially relevant for areas with high water levels, as well as for areas with marshland. Only with the help of a properly done vaccination in such areas can you get a high-quality and full-fledged crop. Most often, pears are grafted on:
- apple tree - to get a quality harvest, you can try to use a quince tree or the usual "Antonovka";
- mountain ash - with this grafting, it is necessary to leave a sufficient number of shoots so that the pear receives as many nutrients as possible, otherwise the tree may die;
- hawthorn - gets along well with a pear, but the tree itself turns out to be very prickly.
Vaccination for mountain ash is considered very relevant. Since mountain ash is considered very frost-resistant, even late pears can be grafted with it. A pear grafted onto a rowan tree can be very compact, and sometimes even dwarfed, but it will give an excellent harvest until late cold.
No less often, experienced gardeners try to graft a pear onto an apple tree. This is troublesome, but in many ways exceeds all expectations, since the fruits of the tree are juicy, tasty and large.
A pear branch can also be grafted onto a hawthorn. However, it is worth remembering that such a tree will be abundantly covered with thorns. Sometimes, of course, this is not a problem for harvesting. Nevertheless, grafting on hawthorn is an amateur business.
Grafting plants is not too troublesome and does not require serious waste at all. Moreover, even novice gardeners can cope with such a procedure, there would be a desire. When grafting a pear, you can get an unusual and at the same time very tasty pear crop that will not resemble any other.
If the cuttings necessary for grafting were cut in the winter, then it is very important to keep them properly until spring. For this, it is best to store them in the refrigerator. Approximately 10-12 hours before grafting, it will be necessary to make a special cut on them. An excellent option would be to process the product in a special solution that accelerates plant growth.
How to plant a pear, see the next video.