PERMABREED

 The sorbopyrus mystery. I recently became aware of someone saying he thought shipova and tatarka were the same. I have grafted both the same year on quince c rootstock. At first glance they look like two eggs layed by the same hen but closer inspection reveals differences. One of the two is much more vigourous and the leaf shape between the two is not the same. Only when they will flower and fruit will i know for sure if they are different or not.  Here is a picture of the two grafted plants. The one on the right is much bigger than the one on the left. All other leaves and branches lower down all belong to the plant on the right. Look for older posts on my blog about sorbopyrus and you will also see that one plant is much bigger. Hard to see here but the stem of the left one is much thicker. 50% thicker. At least. And pulling away more straw reveals another branch with a bud that was covered. The diameter of the larger plant on the left is 27mm and the diameter of the smalle...

Sorbopyrus. My two grafted sorbopyrus trees survived and grew quite well for now this year. The varieties are Shipova and Tatarka. My idea is to cross the two and to breed new varieties from seed. I grafted them on to quince C dwarfing rootstock and planted both young trees together in a 100 liter container in order to constrict the roots. Both these measures are said to be helpful to induce quicker flowering. Since they are fairly big now i decided to give them a larger protection, because we have no dogs and a lot of deer. Sorbopyrus is known to take a long time to flower. Sometimes 15 to 20 years on vigorous rootstock. Hopefully these plants will flower more quickly.

 Sorbopyrus. Glad to see that both of my sorbopyrus are leafing out nicely now so they are heading into their second year of life. Since i have only one of each grafted onto quince c, i need them to stay alive and grow if i ever want to attempt to cross them. I have others grafted onto kirchensaller but they are notorious for taking forever to flower so it could be in 20 years time and while i have some patience this is really too long to wait. The two varieties are shipova and tatarka. Shipova is very well known but tatarka is more of an underdog, reputed to be excellent. It was bred by a mister tatar from the botanical garden in prag who managed to germinate bollwiller pear seeds.

 Sorbopyrus This is a picture of a seedless shipova fruit that was sent to me by Philipp Weiss. Check out his blog and this interesting article he wrote about sorbopyrus: https://xn--skogstrdgrden-hfbr.xn--stjrnsund-x2a.nu/shipova-och-andra-paronhybrider/?lang=en

 Sorbopyrus I have grafted sorbopyrus "shipova" and sobopyrus "tatarka", two varieties of sorbopyrus, which is a hybrid tree of pyrus communis x sorbus aria, onto quince C dwarf rootstock. The idea is to then cross the two and to try and grow new sorbopyrus varieties. Both grafts took and are looking ok. Sorbopyrus is known to take a long time before starting to flower so by grafting it on to Quince C and by constricting the roots i am hoping to speed up flowering. This type of fruit tree is often called Shipova but Shipova is in reality just one variety of sorbopyrus. It is a nice name though and i can see why people refer to the tree by this name. Shipova also is considered the best variety and the most widely grown. But this is because most people don't know tatarka, which was grown by a mister Tatar at the botanical gardens in Prague from sorbopyrus seed. Sorbopyrus, and shipova in particular, apparently rarely produce viable seed and many fruits are seedles...