About 18 years ago I planted some dwarf pear trees. I hadn't looked at the for 2 or 3 years and recently looked at them. One of them was loaded with tiny apple like fruit (no pears). Is it normal for dwarf trees to turn into full fledged Crab Apple trees after so many years?
Are you saying it took 18 years to bear fruit (in which case you probably bought it mislabeled way back when), or that it used to bear pears but now it bears crabapples? The latter is not physically possible, as trees cannot change species midway in life. So either you're getting senile (as we all do in time) & are confused about which tree is which, or you just weren't paying attention & it never did produce pear-shaped pears but was always a round Asian variety like these:
If you're not crazy & they were indeed previously regular yellow pyriform pears & now they're tiny round red crabapples, then the orchard fairies switched trees on you. If you eat one of their changeling crabapples, you'll turn into a stubtailed macaque. The snowmonkeys of Hokkaido used to be pear farmers whose pears were turned into crabapples by those damned orchard fairies! The farmers unknowingly ate the fruit, thus were turned into photogenic monkeys.
-paghat the ratgirl
Possible that your tree has been taken over by suckers from the rootstock? Trace those fruiting branches and see whether they come from below the union. Dwarf pears are often grown on quince rootstock, sometimes with an intergraft to improve compatibility; if the suckers on one of these are allowed to grow enough to start bearing (neglect them a few years, and they just might), they'll bear quince.
:) About 18 years ago I planted some dwarf pear trees. I hadn't looked at :) the for 2 or 3 years and recently looked at them. One of them was loaded :) with tiny apple like fruit (no pears). Is it normal for dwarf trees to :) turn into full fledged Crab Apple trees after so many years? Probably are looking at fruiting branches that have grown from below the graft.
Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!
Dancing dog is back!
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