Callery pear what to do? (Pyrus calleryana)

Callery pear also known as Pyrus calleryana also known as Bradford pear is becoming an issue in the United States. The use of toxic gick to try and control this tree is use by some. If the problem is the solution then what is the solution? I had a wild Pyrus calleryana growing in my back yard and I just cut it down. I am watching to see if it grows back. Could one solution be to graft a tree to the base of the Callery? If so any ideas on what to graft? What can one do besides cutting the tree down?

Not having heard of the Callery pear before, I did a Duck duck go websearch and found a few websites with some information on it.



Callery Pear fruit (source)
Penn state extension says that the tree was first introduced as a pear rootstock, so presumably grafting a pear onto it is perfectly possible. However, they also say that the tree spreads by root suckers, so if reducing the spread of the tree is the aim, then leaving the roots to grow would not be a good idea.
Cutting the tree down may have killed it, or it may regrow as a coppiced trunk, depending on it's maturity.
Another solution to excess wood is hugelbeds, biochar or more craft based timber use.

We had four Bradford Pears on our homestead without any issues.

Our trees were at least 15 years old when we sold our homestead and they had never sprouted from the rootstock.

These trees were quality trees that we bought from a reputable source.

They looked nothing like the Pyrus calleryana, or the Callery pear as they had a very nice shape to them and never needed pruning.

Just my opinion, it seems to me that somewhere along the way some not so reputable seller started selling the Callery as a Bradford Pear and these were not the cultiver 'Bradford".

It is a shame that such a beautiful tree is now getting such a bad rap.

I hope your ideas work out.

you can definitely graft pears, both euro and asian, on calleryana. we’ve got a bunch of volunteers around one of our orchards, and they’re slowly but surely being converted to food production. one of my partners is salivating, waiting for the day when someone with acreage with rampant calleryana lets him play with it for a couple years. i can’t remember his estimate for revenue by the 5th year per acre, but it was high - but probably doable.

Anne Miller wrote:We had four Bradford Pears on our homestead without any issues.

I heard a joke years ago about Bradford Pears. When buying a Bradford Pear also get a chainsaw! One of the Reasons was branches would break due to wind, ice or bad storms. Cleveland pear tree did improve on the Bradford and when I worked at a landscaping business that is what we had in stock. The tree crotch angle was improved on the Cleveland, this help the tree survive.

At my last house, I had a severely damaged Bradford pear, or similar, that I pruned into a fodder tree.  Think giant espalier.  The biomass, both in terms of feed and woody material that came off of that one tree was quite impressive.  I wouldn’t plant one now, but we are getting a bunch of the feral thorny pears.  I am starting to work with them a bit to see if I can prune them into something similar.

Hey yeah they make perfectly usable rootstocks for European and Asian pears. I regularly use them in my orchard and they do just fine.

When I moved to my new house in the summer of 2016, there was a big Bradford pear. I pruned it back hard, and then the following spring I grafted Anjou and Bosc pears onto it. From 2017-2021 I continued to graft over branches to fruiting varieties and then cut back any Bradford branches. Bradford seems to blossom fairly early relative to Anjou and Bosch, so I just cut off the early blooming branches. Last year I got over 50 lbs of pears from it, and this year I only had to cut off three Bradford branches so I'd say that it just about completely grafted over.

T Blankinship wrote: Cleveland pear tree did improve on the Bradford and when I worked at a landscaping business that is what we had in stock. The tree crotch angle was improved on the Cleveland, this help the tree survive.

Thank you for the information on the Cleveland pear.

After reading up on the Bradford pear and the Cleveland pear, what I feel happened is that the landscape company that furnished the trees probably substituted the Cleveland for the Bradford as our trees had none of our trees had the characteristics that I read about for the Bradford.

The Bradford pear was a childhood memory for dear hubby so I bet the company made the substitution and just never said what they did.

Our trees had a very good shape and were never pruned.  They were not very tall when we sold our homestead and they would have had to be at least 15 years old.  Also, the fruit was very tiny so when people talk about eating Bradford pear fruit I just didn't understand.

We also had another pear fruit tree that was very near the Bradford pears that had the best tasting pears.

And I don't remember a bad smell.

Thanks again for the information and for the memories this brought back.

There are several Callery pear trees across mine and my neighbor’s properties. I only hope I find more. I’m a big fan of grafting and the wild ones are the easiest. There’s one growing near my home that now produces four kinds of pear. Ayer’s, Keiffer and two I’m not sure of the name. The only one that’s not good fresh is the Keiffer.
I’m also quick to graft onto my neighbor’s Bradford, although it’s my last choice. The cambium layer isn’t easily found except on the smaller branches.
I regularly use cleft, bark and whip and tongue grafts on all varieties.
In my experience keeping the Callerys cut back prevents them from root sprouting. I believe they spend too much energy regrowing what I prune.
So far, the problem is the solution for me. I probably harvest four or five times the amount of fruit than I would without them.
I took these pictures today. I did all the grafting in February.

just stumbled on this blog post. aside from just grafting desired varieties on, she’s advocating for grafting in larger-fruited early-flowering pears to hybridize and increase fruit size in general to make them less attractive to birds and less likely to spread.

https://elizapples.com/2021/07/16/how-to-make-bradford-callery-pear-less-invasive/

not sure if i agree with her on all her points, but some interesting ideas.