Clarkinks 2021 recommended pears everyone must have

General Fruit Growing
#1

Many of you know a great pear when you taste it. This is my list of recommendations. Flavor rated 1-10 is what it’s capable of. Keep in mind i have not tried every pear. Lets add to this list.

Disease resistant pears
1.Clarks small yellow pear -10
2.harrow sweet -8
3.drippin honey -8
4.harrow delight -7
5. Korean giant -8
6. Ayers -7
7. Clara frijs-7
8. Seckle-6
9. Warren -7
10. Karls favorite-5

Non disease resistant

  1. Bosc 8
  2. Clapps favorite 8
  3. Doyenne Comice 7
  4. Bartlett 6
  5. Abbe fetel 5
  6. Magness 7
  7. D’anjou 6
  8. Forelle 3-7 variable
  9. Chojuro 8
  10. Hosui 6

Pears to try im undecided on or have not had

Potomac
Fondante de moullin lille
Docteur desportes
Citron de carmes
Honeysweet
Concorde
Paragon
Beurre superfin
Aurora
Luscious
Harvest queen
White doyenne
Dana hovey
Tyson

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#2

I have not eaten many of the varieties you list, but to me Magness, Seckel and Comice are 10 flavor wise. Harrow sweet is 8. I’d like to graft Dripping Honey and Clark’s small yellow pear to try them.

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#3

I grow all of the those you mentioned and the small yellow pear i grow is at least 2 points higher on a good year. It’s a pain to pick the fruit at the right time and it takes practice. I do agree with you the ones you mentioned are good pears. If they made the list at all they are in the top 5% of pears for flavor. Clara frijs hinted at being exceptional last year but just did not have it yet. The tree is young. @scottfsmith @tonyOmahaz5 what are your favorite pears nowadays? There are many pears such as orcas, eldorado, and rescue i’m trying for the first time this year.

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#4

The one thing that distinguishes Comice over all the other varieties is that when store-bought, it is top quality, unlike most other pears that are garbage when bought from stores… Too bad it is very susceptible to FB.

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#5

I’ve had very good comice but even comice the last few times i received them as gifts have been unimpressive. It surprised me and my ratings went down, i once considered them the very best. Harry and Davids sell so many of those and everyone raves about them. We know them as Royal Riviera. No doubt a very good pear. Pears | Royal Riviera Pears | Pear Gift Baskets | Harry & David . Several years ago i had a truly exceptional bosc and others purchased were very good. As you mentioned these pears are a real problem to grow in Kansas. These pears are not the same to me anymore. Once you have tasted a home grown tomato can you ever go back to before that?

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#6

Thanks Clark. I’ve decided on an Abbe Fetel, simply because they grow here. I thought about a Concorde, which looks similar but does not taste as good, (to me).

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#7

Thanks for posting this list. I have been working on getting a group of disease resistant pears for several years now that taste good. Although I have only tasted 3 of the 10 listed I now have 7 out of the 10 in my orchard. For me this helps confirm that I’m on the right track and I think it will be a valuable list to others as they add pear varieties to their orchard. Useful post.

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#8

This list changes all the time for all of us. Before someone brings up Passe Crassane pear be aware i do know of it and i have not tried it. It was wildly popular as a winter pear in France. There are even challenges growing it in it’s home country now. I have tried to grow it.

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#9

I will look out for it! A russet?

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#10

Here is some additional information about it Question the History of a pear or know some history? Post it here! - #38 by clarkinks

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#11

I take it back! The name was not on the box I have eaten quite a few, they are very good, not my favorite. I made a pear tart from them this past winter. I also posted pictures of them, they have the small red dot of sealing wax on their stem.

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#12

Clark, Thanks a lot. It is a great repot and made me wanting that Clark’s small yellow pear😋

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#13

I am looking forward to try one of Scott’s favorite Fondante de Moulins Lille. The 4 years old graft is loaded with flowers. Last year I got one pear from the Yulu fragrance pear :pear: and it taste very good like the one in the Asian Market. It is loaded with flowers this Spring and hopefully I can have more taste test.

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#14

Im grafting a few tree’s of Fondante de Moulins-Lille ENR this year to. The disciption sounded good. Nice to know such experts as Scott think highly of it.
Now im looking forward to tasting it even more :slight_smile:

Also grafting tree’s of

Ananas de Courtrai
Fondante de Cuerne
Triomphe de Vienne
Beurré d’Hardenpont
Bronzée d’Enghien RGF
Harrow Sweet
Gieser Wildeman
Harrow delight

All except gieser wildeman if never tasted. So ill post in a few years how they tasted. Im grafting on quince though. And it is “said” they somtimes are more aromatic on quince than pyrus rootstock.

gieser wildeman is one of our best pears for cooking.(stewed pear)
And is really good for that.
Im lucky climate wise. Low to no fireblight and pears like doyenne du comice are grown comercialy here.

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#15

Very useful list Clark, many thanks. Hope you’re doing better, on the upswing.

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#16

I have a question but don’t really know where to ask it. Someone sent me by mistake some pear scions. It was poorly written what variety they are. Does anyone recognize this variety? It might be Avden, Auden, Aude, Aune. Now both the grafts have taken so I wonder what I’ve got. I’ve done various searches and haven’t found a similarly spelled variety.

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#17

‘Paragon’ was renamed to ‘Yungen’, I grafted on some of that this year. I grafted on some ‘Harvest Queen’ this year as well.

We have ‘Honeysweet’, yet it took forever to produce it’s first successful pear last year, I did not leave it in the fridge long enough. This year it had very few flowers. I think the root stock that the nursery put it on is the problem.

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#18

my favorite pear is the Giant turnbull. by Henry Fields, now gone. Does anyone no what this is or if it has had a name change

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#19

You have the name backwards, and there are two different varieties with the same name, both are hybrids, each with unusually large pears.

  1. PI 617642 GRIN-Global (the one that Henry Fields used to sell)
  2. PI 688142 GRIN-Global

Here is more info about the original ‘Turnball Giant’ that ‘Henry Fields’ used to sell Depew Couple Receives Patent for Discovery of Pear Tree

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#20

Ayers and Anjou are two that come to mind.

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