18
THE DAVEY BULLETIN
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January/February 2018
PRESERVING A PIECE OF FAMILY HISTORY
John Siefer, arboricultural researcher, Davey Institute,
received a call asking for help to preserve five, 80-year-old
pear trees threatened by an oil pad going in on the
client's property.
The trees were once part of an orchard planted by the
client's great-grandparents in the early 1900s. The client
wanted to either transplant or graft the trees to make
clones. It was found that transplanting the trees was too
costly, so grafting became the solution.
Siefer contacted the Ohio Agricultural Research and
Development Center (OARDC), a research branch of The
Ohio State University, in February 2017 and connected
with Paul Snyder, program assistant at the OARDC Secrest
Arboretum, to graft the trees.
This was the first time Snyder had grafted pears, but he
had experience with apple trees.
The challenge with grafting these trees was collecting
samples from the trees before the trees broke bud. If
the trees break bud, the tissue is actively growing and
the nutrients are pulled out of the sample, Snyder said.
"Unfortunately, it was that early spring, because we had
a few 80-degree days in February, and that made the trees
break bud earlier than normal, so that was a fight," Siefer said.
Siefer collected pear scions and Snyder located pear
understock to graft the segments of the pear tree to.
"Working with old trees like that is kind of a gamble,
because as the tree matures the chances for you to graft
it successfully go down," Snyder said.
Snyder successfully created roughly 40 genetic copies of
the original trees. The trees will be planted sometime this
year, once the grafts have had time to become more secure.
The original five trees are no longer standing, as they were
removed for the pad installation, but their legacy will live on
through the new trees. The client also is saving the wood
from the original trees to make something with it, Siefer said.
This project was something new for Siefer, and he enjoyed
working on the consulting end.
"I like saving things for my family too," Siefer said. "I liked
helping to save that lineage and family history."
MY DAVEY
Above: This is one of the 80-year-old pear trees from the orchard the
client's great-grandparents planted in the early 1900s. The trees have
since been removed. The trees were still fruiting, but it was unclear what
variety of pear they were. As John Siefer said, you could buy a pear out
there today, but it might not be the same variety of pear.
