HOS's Fruit Propagation Fair and Scion Exchange Review

On Saturday, we went out to the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro, OR to the Home Orchard Society’s Fruit Propagation Fair and Scion Exchange to pick up my pre-ordered custom apple trees. Since apple trees do not resemble their parents when grown from seed (find link), so cuttings are taken and grafted onto root stock. This is what I picked up.

The scion exchange was a huge part of this fair. When people were recently pruning their trees, they cut of the scions needed to make custom grafts. There where hundreds of buckets there full of these scion cuttings for people to take and graft onto new rootstock. It was quite impressive how many scion varieties they had.

As we were leaving, we saw a man carrying a bucket full of scions! I had to ask how many acres he had, to which he said 45. I asked how many scions he got, and he said enough to be playing with sticks for awhile. However, since the scions were free, and he would be paying only a small fee for rootstock, he was probably paying no more than one quarter of the price of what it would cost to buy trees from a nursery. Granted, he has to do a lot of work grafting, but that is a lot of savings for 45 acres.

Home Orchard Society

The Home Orchard Society is a group of hobby fruit tree gardeners based out of the Portland metro area in Oregon. They offer advice, classes, and much more to people who grow fruit trees in their back yards. They have a forum where anyone can ask a question. I became a member this year, and I now receive their quarterly newsletter and discounts to events.

Unfortunately, I found out about the Home Orchard Society too late to attend the fruit tasting every year, including lots of apples. However, I was able to place a custom apple tree order by the end of December 2009, and we will pick them up this weekend at the HOS Fruit Propagation Fair and Scion Exchange. Part of the reason I did this is because I wanted a Dabinett apple tree, and those are kind of hard to find. I had been pointed to a man in New York who would do custom grafts, but I was a little worried about shipping, and I also figure that a tree grafted out here would be more adjusted to my climate. Maybe those are false fears.

Apple & Pear Breeding

Both apple and pear trees are made from grafting one kind of tree, called the scion, to a rootstock which will determine the size of the tree. This is because most apples and all pears are not self-fertile when they bloom. It takes another breed of apple to pollinate an apple, and it takes another breed of pear to pollinate a pear. If pollination does not occur, no fruit will grow.

Because of this cross-pollination, the seeds in the fruit contain the genetic make-up of two different breeds of trees, so the seed will not grow and be the same breed of tree that the fruit came off of, but a new breed. And just like how sibling animals are not exact genetic clones of each other, neither are two seeds from the same apple or pear. Worse yet, I’ve heard that about only 1 in 300 seeds grow up to be an edible fruit tree. Why, I was reading on Home Orchard Society’s forum about someone planting a cherry pit, and 10 years later, the tree has not produced fruit. They did not beat the odds. Makes you wonder how Johnny Appleseed managed to plant all those seeds, but he did.

Since there are fewer pear varieties than apples, the focus is usually on planting the big four – Bartlett (AKA Williams in Europe), Anjou, Comice, and Bosc. Do to their blooming periods, Bartlett and Anjou are planted together, and Comice and Bosc are planted together. Bosc blooms late in the season, and therefore cannot be pollinated by the early blooming Bartlett and Anjou.

Order a Home Orchard Society Make-A-[Fruit]Tree by December 31, 2009

I forgot that I need to give a plug for the Home Orchard Society. They are a group who are centered out of Portland, Oregon. They have several forums on their website, along with some other useful things such as Mason Bees, some eBooks about rootstock, apple diseases, and apple blooming, along with some articles on other topics.

Why I really needed to put the plug in was because they will take custom orders for trees for $12 up until December 31, 2009. You tell them what kind of tree you want, and you tell them what kind of rootstock you want it on, and they will build it for you. You just have to go pick it up at their annual Fruit Propagation Fair/Scion Exchange in March at the Hillsboro Fairgrounds. Take a look at http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3020

Should have blogged about this earlier in case this would be a good Christmas present…