Clarkinks top 10 2024 fireblight resistant, delicious, and highly recommended pears

General Fruit Growing
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Hood is a very low chill pear. It is recommended for gulf coast zone 9 or 10. I have it but don’t expect normal production.

Here at my house, Warren is a superb pear, very fireblight resistant, very good flavor. Fireblight hit 2 or 3 leaves and that was all. It produced 8 nice pears this year 3 years after grafting on a large existing rootstock.

Ayers has not yet bloomed so I can’t give reliable information yet. So far, I’ve seen no fireblight at all on the tree. I have a tree grafted 2 years ago on callery seedling that is 14 feet tall and I have a graft on callery which will go to a family member next spring. Ayers grows very fast in my experience.

Clark’s Small Yellow, Drippin’ Honey, Korean Giant, Seckle, and Tyson all have not yet bloomed. I plan to trade for scionwood and graft Karl’s Favorite (aka Ewart) and Leona this spring.

I have trees of Ayers, Bartlett Nye Russet, Bell, Blake’s Pride, Cabot, Chojuro, Clara Frijs, Clarks Yellow, Daisui Li, Douglas, Drippin Honey, Duchess, Early Yellow, Flame, Foley’s, Harrow Delight, Harrow Sweet, Harvest Queen, Highland, Hood, Hosui, Kalle, Kieffer, Korean Giant, Ledbetter, Magness, Maxine, New World, Plumblee, Potomac, Red Zao Su Li, Scottsboro Callery, Seckel, Seuri Li, Shenanadoah, Shin Li, Shinko, Spalding, Summer Blood Birne, Sunrise, Turnbull Giant, Tyson, Very Late, Warren, Winter Nelis, and Ya Li. About half should bloom this spring.

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What an extensive pear cultivar list! What state/ area are you growing in?:pear:

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Southern Tennessee, just above the Alabama state line.

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Thanks for reply.

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I have this one, but it’s called Louise Bonne d’Jersey on my tag.

It’s neat looking in that it has yellow skin. The wood color I mean. It’s really noticeable because the other pears have greenish wood.

I only have one of your top 10, Warren.

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I have a big family, and each time a sickness rolls through the house, most people get it, while a few don’t. Additionally, each person has symptoms to a differing degree, some worse some better. This is with all of us, except my wife and I being genetically related. I think that fireblight and scab have always been around, as has grafting, but that mass adoption of a few commercially viable varieties has caused disease to proliferate in ways that it previously couldn’t. If all of my children were genetically unique there reactions to each illness would still be different based on overall health and level of exposure, but they would be onre big illness echo chamber. If one variety of apple or peatr is particularly susceptible to a strain of fireblight, and that strain makes contact then an orchard full of genetuic clones amplifies the reach off that strain, spreading it into the surrounding areas. I believe that a greater emphasis on growing apples and pears from seed would insulate the gebnetral growing community from being devestated by disease

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Plant diseases don’t quite work that way JerrytheDragon. One of the major reasons plant diseases proliferate is because of the sheer number of a given species we grow whether for food (pears), fiber (cotton), building material (pines), or whatever reason. Even when not close genetic relatives, a single disease organism can become adapted to the species in which case the entire group is at risk. Tomatoes can be used as an example where late blight has adapted so well that even known resistant genetics only slow it down a little. Pecan can be used as an example where scab was not even a known problem prior to 1925, but with massive numbers of pecan trees planted across the south, eventually scab adapted to the food supply and now we search for resistant genetics. Still - and using an allegory you used - if we had 1000 genetically different pecan trees all resistant to scab, it would be very difficult for scab to adapt to the species but trivial for it to compromise one or two varieties.

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I’m testing the Perdue in East Texas, just planted 2 of them. Fireblight is bad in my area, so it will be a good test

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Hi Pedro- you’re in a great situation with many disease resistant pears, hybrids and variations in flavors.
How much space do you have?

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I don’t have a better understanding of how plant diseases work after reading what you wrote, but i do appreciate your trying.

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I do have some space… My orchard is new, I have 2x Perdue, 1x Pineapple, and 1x Kieffer.

All new trees. The Pineapple and the Kieffer struggled big time last year, so I might have to replace them.

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Im on North East Texas, above Dallas in Hunt Co. Our very wet Spring gave fireblight an advantage. My Keiffers, Ayers, LeConte, Shinko were unaffected by FB. My Orient pear had a touch of it which surprised me sunce its supposed to be resistant. I lost 2 Moonglows I believe to root rot with too much moisture.

Im trying a different rootstock, OHxF97, for the new pears Im
adding hoping it helps.

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