Harrow pears are highly disease resistant. They are so disease resistant you may not even need to spray them in the right climate. My observations so far would indicate to common diseases they have more immunity than kieffer pears. I can’t judge fireblight resistance yet in my area though they have dodged it so far. Harrow delight is easy to graft so easy in fact it could be used as an interstem. Harrow sweet is fast to produce and seems to have a tendency towards overbearing. The taste of harrow sweet is very good but I did not care for the skin of the fruit when I tried it. I hope the skin will be ok here at my farm but will need to let you know about that this fall. Harrow delight is a summer pear and harrow sweet is a fall pear. Harrow delight does not bloom as quickly as harrow sweet but what does? Harrow sweet is the only pear that grown on callery would fruit the first year. Most pears on callery take 5-12 years depending on variety. From my perspective the ohxf333 rootstock would be a very poor choice for harrow pears and ohx87 or ohx97 would be better choices because heavy fruiting pears like these will runt out a tree. Douglas is a quick to produce pear but harrow sweet produces in half as much time which means frequently the first year.
I grafted Harrow Delight and I’m anxious to see how it works out.
The branch structure goes lateral immediately with these types of pears. Harrow experiment Station Expertise in pear breeding is very apparent after growing them for a year or two. Harrow delight has not fruited yet for me. My pears had some leaf disease last year and the harrows never had one spot on their leaves growing right beside the others.
grafted some harrow onto my Keiffer, Leconte and Flordahome…will be curious to see how it does down here.
Harrow Sweet is not FB immune in the South. My grafts are only a year old and I’m already pruning off strikes.
Thank you for the information, ray. Just planted Harrow Sweet this year, so I will be sure to watch for FB. Do you know if it is more like a callery pear in that it will get strikes but cork them off, or can it easily spread and take down the tree?
As I posted, my grafts are only a year old, so I can’t answer your
question. I don’t have a stand alone tree But if FB gets in the trunk of any tree, it’s toast.
I got rootstock from Burnt Ridge, which tends on the small side, and I am not in the South, but here in the Midwest:
I agree; Harrow grafts with ease. Like, leave a scion and a rootstock in the same room, and they will make their dirty, dirty love.
It grows. I doubt I will have flowers this year, but I do have 24 inches of growth on weaker rootstocks; I would be surprised if I didn’t have flowers next year.
The thing is almost like Kieffer, as Asian Pear as you get without it being an actual Asian Pear. Fruit will tell (although many of mine are wildlife plantings) but this thing looks like a winner. I hope I am right, but it is certainly rugged and vigorous so far, in Z5a…
So my Harrow Sweet on OHxF87 arrived on April 3rd and I got it in ground same day. We’ve had warm weather and enough rain since then. But HS is still dormant. Is this normal? Anything I can do to make it leaf out?
I also got a cherry plant the same day and planted, it is leafing out nicely. So I don’t think it’s the weather. Is HS normally late to break dormancy?
Yes it’s one of my latest to bloom and leaf out. It’s not an early pear.
Harrow Sweet and Korean Giant was my latest blooming pears this year but I only have a small sample. Hope these two continue blooming together for late season cross pollination.
Bill,
The KG & HS overlap for me and pollinate my small yellow pear which blooms a little later. Povided KG & HS are correctly labeled they bloom around the same time I should say which I assume they are.
My. 4 th year old Harrow Sweet on OHxF 97. It does not grow much at all. I suspect that a row of lsrge pines near it is a main culprit.
It is very precocious indeed. I will need to thin several flower clusters off as they are on skinny twigs. And I have too many of those twigs.
My Harrow Delight tree produced some delicious fruit last year. I love pears that ripen on the tree!
I bought Harrow Delight from a farm stand a couple of years ago. The fruit were small, probably from lack of thinning. The taste was OK,
To me, HS tastes a lot better but my HS pears are my own tree. make sure I pick them at the right time. That could be why they taste better.
Yes, exactly, picked at the right time! Or not picked at all - I ate most of mine after they fell on the ground.
I have to beat squirrels to my pears 
. Nothing would be left for me if fruit were on the ground.
Tippy,
Got any “tips” for picking Harrow Sweet at the right time? I’ve had problems picking them too early. Do you use the usual 90 degree tilt as your approach?
Mamuang,
That’s a very nice looking Harrow Sweet. I do feel like they need a vigorous rootstock due to their fruiting tendencies. @alan has told me for a long time harrow sweet was one of his favorites and I can definitely see why. Will it survive the kind of fireblight pressure we get in Kansas remains to be seen.