A pear a day keeps the doctor…wishing for pear varieties with better rooting abilities

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges in pear cultivation and the research efforts to improve rootstock varieties.

Imagine you are in the produce section of the grocery store picking out your fruit for the week, and you remember the apple marketing slogan “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Once you make your way over to the apples, you are almost guaranteed to find a variety that fits your preference for taste and texture. These varieties are only made possible because of grafting techniques, a method for combining and reproducing desirable traits in fruit trees. Pear cultivation uses similar techniques, but producing desirable traits such as dwarfing, that apples so readily display remains a challenge in pear cultivation. This is why the selection of pear varieties is so dwarfed (pun intended) compared to that of apples. This week on the show we are joined by Claire Pierce, a 2nd year master’s student in the Department of Horticulture. Claire is co-advised by Kelsey Galimba (OSU) and Jessica Waite (USDA-ARS), and conducts her research at the Hood River Research Station. The long-term goal of Claire’s research is to diversify the available rootstocks used in the pear industry and improve yield for agricultural pear cultivation. The first step is to find compatible rootstocks (the base of…

People in this episode

Guest: Claire Pierce

Topics covered

• pear cultivation
• rootstocks
• scions
• dwarfing characteristics
• agricultural research

Keywords

• pear varieties
• rooting abilities
• grafting techniques
• horticulture
• fruit trees

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: OSU, USDA-ARS

Places: Hood River Research Station

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