Can you graft pear onto an apple or crabapple?

Hey all,

A woman down the street from me has a huge heirloom pear tree that produces some huge green pears, and I would love to try to grow some.  I think the easiest way for me to do this would be to graft them. I see many articles and videos about grafting apple to crabapple or pear, but nothing about grafting pear to apple or crabapple. Can this be done?

I have an asian pear grafted to a crabapple tree in my front yard. It was there when we bought the place a couple years ago so I don't know any details but I would say it's possible!

Mine appears pretty young, it did kick out a ton of pears last year (3x as much as the first ear we owned it), but only like 5 crabapples... Poor tree got hammered with some really wet snow a few weeks ago and a third of it's main branches snapped off. I was trying to shake the snow out of it but overnight it built up and in the morning I thought the whole tree fell over. It had bloomed due to the ridiculously warm February and the flowers just held the snow.

It can be done but I've never heard of any long-lasting success stories.

No room for a pear tree to grow independently of the crab?

Dan Fish wrote:I have an asian pear grafted to a crabapple tree in my front yard. It was there when we bought the place a couple years ago so I don't know any details but I would say it's possible!

Mine appears pretty young, it did kick out a ton of pears last year (3x as much as the first ear we owned it), but only like 5 crabapples... Poor tree got hammered with some really wet snow a few weeks ago and a third of it's main branches snapped off. I was trying to shake the snow out of it but overnight it built up and in the morning I thought the whole tree fell over. It had bloomed due to the ridiculously warm February and the flowers just held the snow.

I didn't think Asian pear and members of the apple family were compatible, but if so then that's really cool! I hope your tree is OK.

Jay Colli wrote:It can be done but I've never heard of any long-lasting success stories.

No room for a pear tree to grow independently of the crab?

Ah, that's a bummer. I've seen pear grafted onto hawthorn with success, so I thought this might work, too. Thanks.

We might be able to find a spot for a pear, but I'm trying to give our trees plenty of room. So far we have a peach, plum, nectarine, two figs, pomegranate, apple, Asian pear, persimmon, and the crab. The crab is huge and already well established, so I figured it would make sense to add some things onto it instead if possible.