US Plant Patent PP5468
Pear tree
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Patent expired September 20, 2003. This plant is in the public domain — anyone may propagate and sell it.
No term adjustment or disclaimer is recorded against this patent, so this is the full statutory term — twenty years from the filing date.
The record
- Patent number
- PP5468
- Filed
- September 20, 1983
- Granted
- May 14, 1985
- Expires
- September 20, 2003
- Assignee
- CARLTON NURSERY COMPANY INC
- Inventor
- BROOKS LYLE A
No cultivar name of record
This patent does not name the plant. Through the 1980s and early 1990s that was still common: naming every new cultivar only became standard practice as plants began to be marketed under brand names. The grant identifies this one by its number and by a written description instead.
Nothing here is missing from our records: the patent itself states no name. Where one exists we show it, and we do not invent one.
Abstract
This invention relates to a new and distinct variety of pear tree (Variety 217) which is useful as a size-controlling pear rootstock. The new variety originated as a single seedling selected from a large group of pear seedling which were grown from open-pollinated seed. This seed was harvested from Old Home pear trees (Pyrus communis) growing in an isolated planting with Farmingdale pollinizers. Pear varieties grown on the understock of this new rootstock clone are approximately 85% of the size of like pear trees grown on Domestic Bartlett seedling rootstocks (Pyrus communis). This "semi-standard" selection can be easily increased by vegetative propagation methods using both hard and softwood cuttings. It is graft-compatible with all major pear varieties. It was selected for its non-rootsuckering habit, its high yield efficiency, its resistance to the Fireblight disease and its high tolerance of the Pear Decline disease. It is hardy, early bearing and has demonstrated good root-anchorage in all orchard sites where tested.
Show the legal claimThe single numbered claim as granted — the legal text that defines what this patent covers.
I claim: 1. A new and distinct variety of pear tree referred to by the cultivar designation Old Home × Farmingdale #217 and substantially as herein shown and described characterized particularly by its ability to serve as a rootstock for grafting of pear tree cultivars to produce "semi-standard" pear trees; further characterized by its resistance to the Fireblight disease and its tolerance of the Pear Decline disease; further characterized by its non-rootsuckering habit, its hardiness, its excellent root-anchorage, its good compatibility with all major commercial pear varieties, its early bearing habit, and its ability to root easily and reproduce readily by hard and softwood cuttings.
Read the full patent: US Plant Patent PP5468 in full — the complete specification, every figure, and the file history.