Clarkinks 2021 / 2022 recommended pears everyone must have

Asian pears, in general, are more precocious than Euro pears. Other factors you mentioned, the more mature rootstock, the bending of branches have also contributed to early fruiting as well.

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Clark,
My Ayers fruited the 3rd leaf after grafting and every year after that.
Warren goes on 6 years without a single fruit bud.

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I have only tried grafting 2 year old wood…where the one-year-old-wood was too short to complete a graft. It was successful.

And, I do believe wood from an older tree is apt to bloom a year sooner…but I’ve seen no ‘scientific’ experiments.

I grafted 3 asian plus Ayers and Bartlett to a Bradford pear a year ago. All but the Ayers have pears set to fruit this year.

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Here are my thoughts on Clark’s undecided/ have not had list
Potomac - two years fruit - I think it is going to be a keeper. With the Anjou parentage, it should be a good keeper but it did ripen on the shelf without refrigeration fairly well this year.
Fondante de Moulin Lille - Very early bloomer for me here an hour north of San Francisco I haven’t figured out when to pick it or ripen it yet. I’m open to suggestions from those of you who like it. Very productive.
Docteur desportes - Have never tried.
Citron de Carmes - A delightful very early pear - pick and eat immediately type. Has very good acid balance.
Honeysweet - I fruited it in MS and was very impressed with the flavor. I have a mature tree here that has been very disappointing. Very productive, no fireblight, but the flavor has not been impressive. It lacks the Seckel flavor that the MS pear had. I have topworked the tree to several varieties.
Concorde - Never fruited. I have young grafts in three places - the most recent a few days ago.
Paragon - My original tree from Cummings Nursery on OHxF87 fruited in 3 years but I think I waited too long to pick the fruit and the result was not good. It is a late bloomer.
Beurre Superfin - I have a 20+year old tree on OHxF513 that is not doing well. The fruit are small and growth is very minimal. This is a pear that I cannot pick correctly. The one year that I did pick and ripen it right, it won our fall pear taste testing. Usually, it has core breakdown when I try it.
Aurora - A four-year-old graft on an established calleryana has fruit set this year. I’m looking forward to tasting it.
Luscious - Never had it
Harvest Queen - I grew it in MS as HW 602 prior to release (scions from the NY Fruit Testing Cooperative Association) and finally got around to grafting it to a mature tree last year and it has set fruit. It is a week later that Harrow Delight that I also grew as HW603 in MS and I think a better-tasting fruit. I still wonder why Harrow Delight has become more popular - maybe because it is 2 weeks earlier than Bartlett.
White Doyenne - Fantastic flavor but my 11-year-old tree was so badly damaged by our 2015 fireblight epidemic that I decided to remove it completely and have not regrafted it.
Dana Hovey - One of the family favorites. That said, I only have one limb grafted to it. The 11-year-old tree was killed to the ground in 2015. I grafted more this year.
Tyson - I think I mentioned in another post a few months ago the I had Tyson grafted in MS since it was recommended as a fireblight resistant cultivar. I moved about 17 years after planting the tree. It never bloomed. However, When I grafted it to my Honeysweet tree here, it fruited in 3 years and in 4 years on my ?Keiffer tree. It is a very good summer pear to precede Bartlett and Warren though it is known as a pear to plant for the grandchildren.

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I only have grafts of what you listed, not the whole trees. I come to realize that different locations and climate contribute to trees respond differently.

My Fondante blooms about now. It is what is called mid range. Ayers and Honey Sweet bloom the earliest in my yard.

I picked Fondante on 10/17 in 2018, on 10/24 in 2019 and did not write down the harvest date last year. It was a sweet pear with smooth texture. At one time I measured brix at 20, I like this pear a lot.

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Wind-swept Fondante de Mouline-Lille. Already blooming a year after it was grafted. Unfortunately, I will remove these flowers from this young graft.

My Harrow Sweet is about to bloom. It is on a later side comparing to several other Euros I have.

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Nice report, thanks!

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Thanks for putting together this list every year (and for all of you that respond). Based on recommendations in previous threads (and what folks actually had in stock last fall) I put in a Seckel, Harrow Sweet and Potomac from ACN last week. I am looking forward to seeing how they do!

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To add a data point to the list, my Ayers graft has multiple flowers on it this year. I grafted it two years ago onto a Bartlett tree. Seckle took three years to flower but I haven’t been able to get a fruit off it yet. The seckle grafts from @joleneakamama are loaded with flowers this year so here’s hoping.

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I took photos today of my last pear blooms of the year if anyone is interested in late bloomers. Varieties do vary a bit but usually maintain their blooming order. My latest is always Gorham (and its russeted sport Grand Champion) with Paragon/Yungen just a few days prior. This year Rocha is still in full bloom - a little later than the last few years. Other varieties that have just finished bloom are Shenandoah, Cold Snap and Joey’s Red Fleshed. Of the Asians, 20th!(upload://enQaSKZFHySS2NP5fRRMVItNyvn.jpeg) Century and Korean Giant were the last.

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I really like Luscious. It ripens long after my Clapps, so extends the season. It tends to produce in clumps of five, so requires thinning if you want bigger pears. I prefer the taste over Clapps.

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David, do you know whether Paragon/Yungen (PI 617677) and Paragon (PI 688179) are the same?

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My understanding is that they are the same. It seems that the pear was named Yungen originally and maybe the younger folks at the Oregon Experiment Station didn’t know about that and released it under the new name. Here is what GRIN has about the two.
Yungen’

Type: Cultivar name

Named for John A. Yungen, Professor Emeritus Oregon State University, Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center, in appreciation of his years of service and his fondness for

Sugar, David Oregon State University

’Paragon’

Type: Cultivar name

SNP data 2019 indicates synonymy

CPYR 2622

Type: Site identifier

Group: LOCAL

Corvallis local number

EUROPEAN CULTIVAR

Type: Site identifier

Group: CROPTYPE

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Everything said above is correct. See the information here from @Vohd and @alanmercieca Experience with 'Paragon' pear?
As I have mentioned before comice is not a strong growing pear here in Kansas and half of those I have growing I lost to disease. Paragon takes back after the comice genes and not the Bartlett genes. I’ve not given up on it but I’m not currently growing it.

Thanks for this info!

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Get kieffer and then graft to it next year :slight_smile:

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I had a similar situation as yours, but with Mutsu apple. I grafted it to 3 separate trees (multiple varieties on each tree). 2 trees started to produce on the 3rd year, the other tree didn’t even bloom in 6 years. Sometimes we don’t understand nature’s ways.

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Hybrids made with ‘Bartlett - Max Red’ = in part “Its tree resembles that of Bartlett except possibly having a little less vigor”, so weak growing could be caused by both ‘Bartlett - Max Red’ and ‘Doyenne du Comice’

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Bartlett is a strong grower here.

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I am not sure if I understand it correctly, yet in the Passport info for ‘Bartlett - Max Red, it sounds to me like they are saying that some of the seedlings created using ‘Bartlett - Max Red’ will not take on the same vigor as Bartlett, instead taking a lower vigor.

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