Toora Heritage Pear Farm is a living museum of heritage pear species which are being cared for and propagated by the Friends of the Toora Heritage Pear Farm. This weekend - the Friends hosted a grafting workshop in order to continue the developement and bio-diversity of both heritage pears and apples in the region. Neil inspired the group with a pep talk - taking us through the reasons and techniques for grafting and we were able to choose from about 100 species of heritage pears or apples. Taking root stock suitable to our soil conditions and also the size of the finished plant we desired we were then able to choose out species with the desired characteristics. The choices and combinations was truly overwhelming. First of all - if you are grafting more than one species - they must have the same growth rate, secondly they must also flower at the same time to ensure pollination. Finally after much deliberations I chose the Snow Apple and the Tom Pippin. Later Neil told me this was an "old timers favorite pair". Well I completely fluked that one - after 2 hours of mucking about trying to find a way through the information that was available. A word of warning - go to such workshop with some knowledge of heritage pears or apples!!!
http://south-gippsland.com/toora-pear-orchard.htm
http://www.woodbridgefruittrees.com.au/
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