I was asked for top fireblight resistant great tasting pears for 2026. Here is the list I came up with. They are some of the best if not the best. my small yellow pear did not make the list this year. It is to hard to grow properly. Im not saying don’t grow it im saying don’t put it on your top list because like clapps favorite it is ripe in the morning and rotten by afternoon. Clapps has an additional downside which is no fireblight resistance. Clapps is a great pear as far as taste goes but has no fireblight resistance to speak of.
As Trev says, Bell should be considered. The only one so far who has tasted fruit iirc is ukie.
One thing that might help with your list is to add parents.
Warren - Giant Seckel X Doyenne du Comice
Ewart - Farmingdale X Lemon
Maxine - Giant Seckel X Doyenne du Comice
Potomac - Moonglow X Anjou
Harrow Sweet - ? X Bartlett
Ayers - Garber X Vermont Beauty
Duchess d’Angouleme - White Doyenne X ?
Drippin’ Honey - ? X ?
Korean Giant - ? X ?
Large Seckel - Seckel X ?
Worden Seckel - Seckel X ?
Adding a few:
Bell - Luscious X US65003-023
Perdue - ? X ?
Shenandoah - Max Red Bartlett X US56112-146
We could also have a discussion about Luscious, Leona, and Charles Harris though I don’t know enough yet about Charles Harris since I am just grafting it this year.
I won’t rain on this parade, but IMO, both Ayers and Harrow Sweet are debatable for fireblight tolerance.
Turnbull is not going to quite hit the mark for superb flavor. Shenandoah is in a similar place because it is not so much a fresh eating pear as a storage pear. There is a place for storage pears! New World IMO is not going to have quite enough fireblight tolerance to make this list. Briaca is a red flesh pear aka Cocomerina. I don’t know enough about it at this time to comment. Extending this conversation a bit, Kieffer could be included due to overall excellent fireblight tolerance but it falls short of the mark for texture and flavor. It is still a good pear.
Fireblight tolerance is a moving target! A variety that is very tolerant for Clark could be seriously deficient for me. Ayers is a good example. My Ayers tree lost the top 8 feet of growth in 2025. It is going to grow out of it, but it is frustrating to see that much of the main trunk go up in flames… along with the first half dozen fruit it had set.
My dwarf seckel pear from Stark’ Bros. nursery was a beautiful 8 foot tree last spring. But by last fall, I had cut at least 60 percent to remove fireblight.
Today, March 30, 2026, it is in full bloom again; hopefully it will regrow without the fireblight. I will add that our two Keiffer pear trees seem to have outgrown their fireblight attacks. They are now 9 years old.
Fire blight destroyed my Seckel years ago so I won’t even consider it now. It had “some” resistance for a few years but not on level of Potomac, Magness, Warren.
It is an easy pear to grow. Make sure it’s ripe when you pick it. Cliff told you right that Turnbull is a nice pear. It is not to most people’s taste since it is more similar to an apple in flavor. I like it very much.
My experience was the opposite I need to replant bell etc. Due to the fireblight outbreak we had. Strangely this time my row of Moonglow never got a strike.
Same here. That didn’t stop me from trying again. I remember Clark saying he thought it might be different Seckel pear varieties. But it also could be different fireblight strains in different areas. Different strains affect different varieties differently so in one location with one strain Seckel could be resistant where same variety in a different location with a different fireblight strain could be getting nailed.
That is very true. I lost several things called seckel but now I have the real seckel and large seckel and they do great. They been fruiting for years. I was receiving sugar pears that were not seckel at first. Fireblight murdered my fake seckles.
Sure I’m willing to try them again. Thank you for the kind offer! I had bad luck with several varities people sent that year it was nearly 90% mortality. Even my old pears got hit hard that year. The new grafts all got it except my orients that year. I had no Strikes on those and about 30 takes lol. I’m going to interstem some kieffer and orient later. Hopefully those I sent you are doing well. I was not alone everyone got hit hard that year in this area.
I’ve almost given up on the lists indicating fireblight resistance. So many seem to contradict each other (or maybe the next strain of fireblight is too much for them). I’m glad to hear “real” sekel might actually be resistant (and I hope I have the right one).
I tried to really stick to the fireblight resistant ones, but I’ve started adding some pears that are known to be highly susceptible (comice). If they don’t make it that’s fine. I am only grafting one type of pear per tree though. If it all goes wrong and that one tree is killed won’t lose something else I want.
Duchess D’ Angoulme can be a good pear. It will always tends to produce more than other european pears. It is not the quality of the others, but it is superior to most pears in every other way. It is highly disease resistant, heavy producer, stores ok, the pears are large, ripens late in the year when most pears have came and went. That is a lot of things going for it.
Another trick you can do is when you grow a pear like comice surround it with things other than pears like jujube or persimmon or pawpaw. Fireblight can’t infect them.
Yeah, I was told that pineapple pear was very fire blight resistant. It did not have a hint of fireblight for four years then this winter it got it and died.