I’ve been Googling for an hour and I keep finding the same snippets of text about Tyson pear. It sounds delicious and is fireblight resistant, but NO ONE lists chill hours. Does anyone know? If not, do any of you have success with Tyson in a low-chill area, such as Coastal California? I have an opportunity to graft some onto my trees, but I need to know if it will fruit. Thanks!
Lizzy,
You are gonna love me for finding this article.
Here is a report of Tyson fruiting delicious early-season pears at UC Santa-Cruz!
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Haha, I actually have that article already because I took my first classes in fruit tree care up at the CASFS farm. But luv ya anyway 
Here’s what Orin Martin (campus fruit guru) mentions about Tyson, in case others are reading: “Dawn and Tyson – I know nothing of these varieties’ source or origin but they are the ultimate summer sweet butter pear; a grafting project for the winter.”
This is part of why I want to try Tyson–and even already have a healthy graft growing–and want to try Dawn but have never heard of anyone having a tree.* But they actually get a little more chill up there on the hill (campus is higher up, into the redwood and oak forests, I’m down near the water) so I just wondered if it would do as well down here. And our chill hours are so variable each year. I guess I can just cross my fingers! I haven’t even looked up what we’ve totaled for chill yet this winter.
Hmm, now that I think of it, maybe I can get a scion from campus!
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Dawn pears lack fireblight resistance wheras Tyson is highly resistant.
Tyson is displaying some strange characteristics which I suspect it’s getting from the callery rootstock. It’s foliage is red but who had saw this before?
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Nice photo! Looks very happy!
We planted a bench graft of Tyson this spring and I have also noticed a bit of red to the leaves. Is that characteristic of this variety? (I screwed up storing the root stocks in poorly draining pots, so I assumed it was something to do with the hangover from that.)
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The other Tyson’s I grow have some red but nothing like this one. This tyson was green this spring and changed in summer. I really suspect the red leaves are some characteristic imparted on the tree by the callery rootstock but time will tell.
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I grafted Tyson onto a large Bradford pear that I chopped down this spring. It has grown probably 5 ft so far. No red color at all. Does Tyson always show red? If so maybe I don’t have Tyson after all. Anyone out there having any luck with it in the southeast? I’m worried about fireblight, which ravaged my apple trees last year. Supposedly it is resistant but that doesn’t seem to count for much around here.
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