Just wondering if anyone else on here is growing quinces. Would be interested in hearing of others experience growing them, particularly from young plants, as ours have taken a long time to really start setting fruit properly.

Which variety is it? We have a very old quince, but I've seen trees bearing fruit in the second year from planting. Not many, though.

The variety we have I do not have a name for, the one at my parents place is Smyrna or Champion. Just checked Smyrna spelling and site had a photo of Pineapple Quince, which looks very similar to ours. Have a feeling that it may have something to do with soil type. Around 40 years ago Mums father planted one for us, a sucker off one of his trees which fruited well for him and it had the same problem, would set plenty of fruit, but not hold them past golf ball size.

A sucker? Maybe it's a rootstock?

Quinces are regarded as coming true to type from root suckers, not needing to be grafted, although those grown commercially for sale are probably grafted, ours came from a friend Mum and Dads was a purchased plant. Grafting would allow a greater rate of increase as against relying on a slow increase due to suckering. Our plant was a sucker coming off a tree that was bearing heavily and had been for years, one of the best quinces I have tried.

I have a feeling that our dwarf Bartlett pear tree had a quince rootstock, but that's as close to having a quince tree as I've come.

Shule wrote: ↑Thu Apr 16, 2020 1:15 am I have a feeling that our dwarf Bartlett pear tree had a quince rootstock, but that's as close to having a quince tree as I've come.

Quite likely Shule, the only way to dwarf a pear at this point in time that I am aware is to use either of two Quince rootstocks, from memory Quince A or Quince B