Polyculture planting seems to create additional protection as 'plant buddies' tend to protect each other. Healthy soil in my experience goes a long way in preventing disease, as well as a good plant guild setting. I have some reservations on this cutting as it is not as healthy as I would wish, but the soil I have it planted in is still being mulched heavily due to lack of organic matter. I have a 6 foot tall cutting here on the shore that I am anxiously waiting to see if it will bear fruit. Now I reside on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, but the original hardy oriental pear tree, now 16 years old, is close to 24 foot tall, but only bears on alternate years. I took several air layers from the original tree, kept one and gave away the rest. I want to say the massive amounts of sheet mulching I had applied helped change the soil structure somehow as I had started noticing really nice, dark, crumbly soil instead of that terribly sticky clay. Once the tree hit 12 feet in height something must have changed, three straight years with no signs of fire blight. I ended up pruning over a third of the poor tree that summer, an additional third of the tree the following summer, and was ready to throw in the towel.

My hardy oriental pear had an explosion of growth and a major outbreak of fire blight. Flooding and run-off from their property were my heartbreak. My next door neighbors were synthetic fertilizer lawn enthusiasts, I preferred sheet mulching and horse manure. All was good the first two years when we had unusually dry conditions, then came a very wet spring. Heavy clay soil and swampy conditions were my enemies. I had purchased several bare root trees and planted them in our property in Great Bridge area of Chesapeake. Better to find out NOW than to wait several years to know if you made a good choice. He should know best what works well under your set of circumstances. He has had years of listening to commercial orchardists complaining and/or praising different root stocks. He/she should know what works best in your region - minimum winter temps, soil types, rainfall/irrigation, diseases, etc. What I do recommend is talking to a local orchard, or better yet, ask your County Extension Agent. Without knowing all of your requirements, I couldn't even begin to offer suggestions. Some nurseries only use one type, while others will offer a wide selection. Picking the best choice for your circumstances can be a daunting task. There are dozens and dozens of available root stocks. The first choice in root stocks is generally size (dwarf, semi-dwarf, etc.), and then cold hardiness.ДЄlso important in selection are disease resistance, soil type, water requirements, anchoring, etc. I estimate this tree dates to the late 1940s, but that's just a guess based on the construction date of the house I think it was originally associated with. This year it's looking perfect so far, with heavy fruit set. (I saw other random pear-family trees in the neighborhood that turned totally black that year, and now appear to have died.) Last year the fire blight was minor and much fruit was set, but it all dropped very early in the year for reasons unknown. Two years ago it got a case of fire blight that blackened half the tree. In my own actual experience, the Kieffer pear that was abandoned/neglected on this property for decades is still healthy on secondary spires (central spire is long since gone dead and been turned into woodpecker condominiums) and produced abundant fruit three years ago, which was the year that I found it.

Around here the Kieffer is actually sometimes called the 'homestead' pear because it's the most likely fruit tree to find still alive and producing on old home sites that have been vacant for decades. In Oklahoma the Kieffer pear (actually a hybrid between Bartlet and an Asian pear) is said to be resistant to fire blight, which is common.

Fire blight apple trees