Huuuuggge Pear tree

[Joshua Diaz]

Hello I was wondering if anybody knew if you could air layer a pear tree and if so when would be the right time? I live in woodside ca which is northern california about 40 minutes from sf. My other questions was if you could cut some of the smaller trunks up top and just put some root hormone and wait for it to sprout roots? I would like to take a piece or pieces of since the tree will be cut down. It is said to be 80 to 100 years old.


Thank you.

 

[JudyB]

When is it slated to be cut down? You'll want to wait till spring to start the layer, and then it'll need a few months to put out roots. If it's cut down before that, you could try to get some cuttings from it instead.

 

[Joshua Diaz]

In the next 6 months I believe and if they happened to do it sooner and take some cutting any recommendations as far as what medium to put the cutting in ?

 

[PaulH]

How big is the base? I would try to dig the whole thing up.

 

[Joshua Diaz]

The whole trunk circumference is around 4ft and ok i never even thought of that. Should i wait until spring to dig it up ?

 

[BrianBay9]

I've successfully airlayered a pear. Spring where you are starts in February, right? You might still be able to do the airlayer before it's gone.

 

[AlainK]

From my experience, air-layering a pear-tree is 3 to 10 whereas it's 6 to 10 for apple-trees and 9.5 to ten for Japanese maples.

But since the kind of tree you are showing is very likely to be grafted, it depends on the variety above the graft.

Cuttings from apple-trees are not so easy, cuttings from pear-trees are very difficult.

 

[Joshua Diaz]

Yes February is around the time it starts.

 

[Joshua Diaz]

That is what i was afraid of espeically with that gnarly bark it has. Hopefully I can manage to preserve a part of this tree.