Many of us grow 20+ varieties of pears so I ask you do we need to or are we just turning into pear snobs? Truly I find uses aka excuses for growing so many types such as storage qualities, fresh eating preferences, canning qualities, size of pear, drying ability etc… Pear ripening times vary so more pear trees give me more fresh pears and of course the list of excuses goes on and on.
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I think it is more along the lines of pear hoarders. Snobbery would seem like one would only grew a limited few elite ones.
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KlecknerOasis,
My latest excuse is I’m now convinced red fleshed types must have higher antioxidant levels and so I must have all of those. Keep in mind I grow juneberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes etc so I’m not really missing any antioxidants. If I write a book think I will name it when growing pears becomes an addiction.
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And there are people like me who have no interest in canning pears (or canning any fruit for that matter). I’d rather dry than can fruit.
So I only grow pears that I have heard are good for fresh eating, another kind of snobberry, maybe 
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Mamuang,
You grow several types of fruit that I consider to be very good so I trust your opinion! Perhaps we are pear snobs but once you try a good pear it’s hard to buy a grocery store pear again.
Yes, that’s where the pear snobbery comes in. However, I’m more of a fig snob than a pear snob. What I mean by that is that while I like figs, they are far from being a fruit I’m super excited about unless its a really good fig. In that regard I haven’t become a pear snob yet, but when I have 15 different kinds producing in a season, I suspect that I will be far more excited about some than others. God bless.
Marcus
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Darn right, the world needs more pear snobs, keeps us from fighting about less important things!!
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My squirrels or coons are pear snobs. They much prefer the tree-ripened ones.
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Most people are in a way fruit tree snobs. You are only going to plant fruit that you think is going to be good. And if it ends up being terrible most people tear it out and plant something else. People don’t say, “I hate Red Delicious apples but I’m planting it anyway.”.
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To want as many varieties as possible is not snobbery; quite the contrary. It is to believe that each variety has worth and you want to experience as many of them as possible.
(When all the peoples of the world feel the same way about other people it will be a truly democratic world!)
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The pear snobbery phenomenon is but a tiny fog droplet when compared to the tsunami wave of apple variety collectors, where an apple snob needs at least 50 different varieties before they are even noticed by fellow apple snobs. And it is a banishable offense to enjoy a big, juicy Fuji apple purchased at an Asian market.
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I’m with marknmt, it is not snobbery it is collecting. You are an avid collector of pears, pears, and more pears. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that your knowledge about pears is extensive. Some collect coins, some collect stamps or beanie babies, and then… others collect fruit.
I have 85 different peonies that I have collected and now sell.
I have never met an apple snob. I attribute they’re discerning tastes to hands on experience with a vast number of apple varieties.
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I do love to collect pears. I have around 50 varieties now and that number is increasing all the time. Some of my newest varieties I ordered this year are extremely rare and reportedly very good.
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My pear-related nuttiness is just grafting a million varieties onto ONE big, old tree. I’ve got a small yard, and I can’t plant more trees, so I just add a branch of this and a branch of that.
But pears do bring out some sort of primal possessiveness in me. I used to live on an old Spanish ranch in rural New Mexico, and there was a huge old pear tree in the courtyard of this crumbling adobe manse (sorry if I’ve told this story before). No one who lived there would eat the pears, because the old leaky sewer pipes ran under the courtyard right under the tree and that freaked them all out. I thought that was a silly non-issue. One day I saw that the pears looked golden and ripe, so I picked one and bit into it. It was just bursting with pear-y deliciousness, and I had this sudden overwhelming surge of possessiveness, feeling “this is MY tree!” and I actually looked all around me to see if anyone was watching, like I didn’t want them to see that the pears were ripe. ALL MINE! Then I started laughing because I realized I was acting like a caveman.
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I’ve run into this problem with home owners unwilling to use their leach fields as orchard sites. The concern being that roots invading pipes would not only cause blockage but make the fruit dangerous to eat. While feces related food poisoning is not a rare event, I’ve never heard of bacteria passing from the roots into the fruit- it seems it is always from direct contact with fresh manure or by way of human hands. However, when I’ve contacted our local health dept advisers I could receive no endorsement for planting in a septic field.
I have installed at least one orchard in a leach field and after 15 years of harvests no one has complained of any complications and the leach field still drains perfectly well. Any danger from roots seems exaggerated because I am in an area where large forest trees have roots systems well established in probably the majority of the leach fields and even huge maple trees don’t usually clog the pipes.
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I would have less concern about the human waist than I would about all the chemicals we all send down the drain as we clean and so forth. God bless.
Marcus
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And yet, it is human and other animal feces that is responsible for most food related poisoning in this country. Has anyone here ever heard of household chemicals being drawn up by the plant and into fruit? Have any health consequences from this process ever been recorded?
There are an awful lot of known dangers in this world to worry about- I think I’ll stick to them. However, my wife and I try to keep the household chemical use to a minimum and poisons are better splashed on the soils surface to break down than released under ground by way of septic systems.
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I won’t myself be concerned about anything in a septic system moving thru the plant and into the fruit. I’d be way more concerned about chickens, ducks, wild birds, pigs, goats etc contaminating fruit if in or near the orchard. All the chemicals, vehicle exhaust, etc pumped into the air, water, and oceans is much more of a risk than a septic field.
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There was a recent concern about lead in apple juice http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2011/11/consumer-reports-tests-juices-for-arsenic-and-lead/index.htm and of course lead arsenic soils are of concern in certain areas http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/area_wide/AW/AppK_gardening_guide.pdf. Plants can pick up things though we are more likely to pick them up elsewhere.
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The CS report makes me glad we mostly stuck with organic apple juice when it was our son’s favorite beverage. Of course, the lead and arsenic was not necessarily delivered to the apples via the roots. Because lead-arsenate was so used right into the 1940’s by NY apple growers and others just dust from the ground could be blown onto the fruit itself. Certainly it was banned for a reason, and replaced with a couple generations of safer materials today. Now back to the question of house cleaning compounds going from the septic system into fruit.
But your point is relevant and may be evidence of root derived poisons. However, I believe studies of copper-arsenate treated wood planter boxes have come up negative as far as vegetables absorbing the preservative.
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