Grafting Class of 2025

We will have four types of rootstock available – three for apples and one for pears. The apple rootstocks are Geneva 935, EMLA 26, and EMLA 7. The pear rootstock is OHxF.333. If you don’t know what this means, that’s fine. They are dwarfing/semi-dwarfing rootstocks, so the size of your trees will be manageable. We will talk about rootstock during class.

APPLES: I will provide scion wood – the part that determines what kind of apple or pear you get - from our orchard here at the farm. We have chosen to grow scab resistant and scab immune varieties so we don’t have to deal with spraying fungicide to prevent apple scab. We will have about a dozen varieties of scion wood available for you. The variety list can be found below. I’ve eaten all of these, and although you probably have never heard of them, they’re all really good. I also have scions from a Peck’s Pleasant, which was taken from a tree on Svensen Market Road, and a King Apple from our farm in Brownsmead. These are not scab immune, so some years you may get brown spots on your apples. They don’t affect the taste of the apple, but they can affect their storage life. I also have several varieties of cider apples. Many of these are NOT good for eating – they are used for making (typically) hard cider. I will cut scions of these varieties for you upon request – just let me know how many trees you would like of each variety.

PEARS: We have chosen to grow primarily Asian pears. We did this because they don’t suffer from pear scab like European pears do. They are susceptible to fire blight, especially when young. I will have Asian pear scions available. There will only be 10 pear rootstock available for a class of 5 students, so there may need to be some rationing if everyone wants to graft pears.

ASIAN PEAR VARIETIES:

Chojuro

Ichiban Nashi

Hosui

Shinseiki

Shinsui

Shinko