Here comes the 2016 apple and Pear harvest!

Bill,
Many of these trees are mature and production picks up a lot in years 9-12. The majority of these pears came from about the same number of pear trees you have they are just a little more mature. Pears don’t hurry when it comes to producing fruit. Wait a few years Bill and I hope to have some better pictures to show you. I have an equal number coming into production within 1 - 4 years as those I picked from this year. As your trees get older they will produce like crazy! Good fortune is always a factor in growing fruit so even though I did my part this year that’s not why I got fruit. Surprising those improved kieffers made a good crop. These are the little fruitlets covered with frost rings from those mid 20 degree nights this spring. Almost had an empty bucket to show you :0)

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Nice harvest Clark! You might have to change your name to Pearinks… I have never seen so many pears like you have harvested this year. How many bushels, pounds, however you measure them, do you think you’ve had this year in pears? Are you going to can all of those? If not, will you be able to make a little $$ off of the extra? What would say is your best tasting, most productive and most disease resistant varieties?

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We dry them, can them, freeze them, put them in cold storage using a variety of methods. I lose track of how many there are but I would guess about 12 five gallon buckets of pears this year. I did not have extras to sell this year. My family on average each use several pears per day. As my new trees get older I might have enough to sell in the next 2-10 years. My pears are my retirement plan. I hope to get good enough at growing them that when I retire they will provide an income. In this area it took me a long time to learn to properly grow them. I need to find better varieties if I hope to achieve that goal of being a commercial orchardist. ARS Grin - Corvallis was not shipping scions this last year due to a virus problem so many pears I wanted to evaluate this year had to be put on hold. Did not have enough variety of scions to graft to my rootstocks. I was fortunate to get what scions and rootstocks I did. The blazing hot sun and strong storms further set me back. This year I moved ahead but definitely not at a pace to meet my goal. Pears take 10 years to grow into something extremely productive so 10 years from now I’m short of my goal. I tried to counter that by planting 100 ohxf333 rootstocks. My theories on properly growing pears have potential. My preliminary test results from my pear planting seem positive. Drippin’ Honey is the best overall cultivar of pear I grow. Unfortunately it is trademarked and patented so it cannot be reproduced or grafted. It looks like My pear harvest was successful this year but the quarantine on rootstocks and scions set me back at least a year. I made the best of the circumstances but will never become a successful commercial orchardist doing what I did this year. I’m hopeful that duchess will be as good as I suspect and produce heavy yields. When Corvallis offers scion wood I will test several new varieties and hope to get back on track.

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Thanks @clarkinks for posting such inspiring eye-candy.

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Justanne,
Two - five years from now I hope to show you significantly more pear eye candy. Thanks to the t-bud tricks @fruitnut showed me I can correct my grafting failures the same year now. Some of my new baby trees are nearing their production years. On the heals of those are several I top worked this year using some new pear grafting tricks I learned the hard way. There are several varieties of pears that are very compatible with most rootstocks. I’m getting better at disease treatment which should increase production. There are other things I could do to increase production I don’t do for my own personal reasons and beliefs. A net could be put a few feet off the ground to catch windfalls as they fall similar to a cherry picker like they use in California that wraps around the bottom of the tree before they shake it. I believe some of the crops should be left behind intentionally for animals and other things that need them. Every pear tree has something about it that’s unique and learning how to work with them can be a challenge. Duchess as an example has very large pears and very brittle wood which can be a recipe for disaster. Clara frijs , ayers , and Seckel have very small fruit that’s reportedly very sweet. Kieffer has course fruits but the yields are heavy. Drippin Honey has very sweet fruit that attracts fruit thieves. Learning the traits of the pears I believe are the key to growing them successfully.

I like the picking tool you use. I have used a coffee can with a vee cut into the tin or even a milk jug with the top cut off. I just taped it to my swimming pool rod. It extends to twelve feet, it works great! I like the looks of yours with the rake on top. I can see how that would work great. Thanks for sharing your harvest pictures. Your fruit looks assume!

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Johnnysapples,
Thanks for bringing up the fruit picker I did not think about it. If anyone is needing the fruit picker here is the basket without the pole https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CZ4J6Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A25DVOZOPBFMAN and here is with the pole https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002S8BRSQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER. Those hooks are like fingers at the top of the picker and can really help to pick fruit. I use the telescoping pole on the tool to pick my tallest trees. The pole reduces down to 8’ which is tall enough to pick my Asian pears.

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This is a sample of my pears this season. Heavy on the Orient side. I picked a few Kieffer today to prevent limbs from breaking. The Kieffer separated easily when lifted up so they might be ripening early as several others are.





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Bill,
Those look great! Nice variety of pears! Those ayers and seckle look like they would be sugar sweet! Orient and Kieffer are great producers!

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Ok, here are my truly cruddy pears (first ever pears) seckel and Flemish Beauty. All the skin has dried and they’ve only been on the kitchen table for two days. The skin is loose but the inside of the pears is not yet ripe or soft. Pears are truly different than any other fruit I have ever grown. Well, the squirrels like these! They are so russeted and they were all bagged too!

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Bill, how long will they keep like this and any special care that they need?

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I’m not sure how long they will keep but surely they will last 2-3 months but I suspect each variety will store differently. I’m going to share these with my daughters/family so they might not get the opportunity of waiting to see how long they will keep. Some need to be stored to improve the taste but the Orient and Kieffer taste great straight from the tree. The only special care they get is bagging and taking care not bruise them.

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those asian pears… omg yum

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Mrsg47,
Those pears look as good or better than any pears. They have character so I think they are wonderful! Bet they will taste excellent!

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Thanks Sam Drippin honey is a pear I highly recommend growing.

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clark, thats gotta be on my list to add to my tree next year

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MrsG,

Throw those pears into the fridge. The insides might ripen and improve after they chill out in the fridge for a while.

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Sam,
Mine did not come into bearing as fast as most Asian pears do. They were worth the wait.

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I had to net my pear trees. The squirrels have been stripping every fruit tree I have of fruit and spurs. After netting I saw a black squirrel on the ground right in front of the tree standing up and scratching his head,lol! The fox squirrels take the spurs off. I might just give in and let the wildlife have all the fruits. It’s such a battle to grow fruit to harvest! I could have way more fruit from a road side stand.

I feel your pain. I just did not have the energy to net all of my fruiting trees this year. The squirrels are savages this summer. I did take a pick of my small pear harvest. The squirrels ate everything that was so hard and green too, it must have been our lack of water. The fruit is always juicy, that is the only reason I came up with. In the past I sprayed, netted every tree and it really helped. Next year!

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