I visited Kansas several years ago (in 2003) for the Walnut Council meeting. Among other events, we visited the pecan breeding station. The tour was in 107F temperatures. We were all standing outside introducing ourselves. When it was my turn I said “I’m Darrel from Alabama and I came up here to enjoy your nice cool weather”. I got the most laughs that day. I’m used to 100+ with high humidity. Kansas was hot with low humidity.
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Only someone from the South would call 100 degrees farenheit and 85% humidity cool. Literally you can cook yogurt at that temperature i do that outside. It takes 6 hours at 100 degrees to cook yogurt. I’ve been to Beumont TX in the heat of the summer and its hotter. Never been to Alabama.
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If you want to feel the heat, try 104 degrees and raining. That is like being in a sauna. Yes, it happens in Alabama and most southern tier states.
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What is a bit strange is that most nurseries sell Harrow Sweet but I could only find one that sells Harrow Delight. So I am wondering why Harrow Delight is not popular amongst Canadian nurseries/local stores? Perhaps @chinook you would know.
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That is incredibly hot and that is saying something when speaking from someone from Kansas. Let me tell you the bad news i read about its getting hotter. If we are adding 25 degrees so is everyone else i assume. That doesnt sound so bad in the winter by the way.
Kansas City summers could be as hot as 125 degrees in the next 30 years, study finds
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/weather-news/article264572861.html#storylink=cpy
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Have noticed that the companies that sell harrow delight are consistently running out of these pear trees in early spring. There is a big oppurtunity for someone.
So, I was able to find one from a small nursery on facebook. The shipping was horribly pricy, but it survived the winter, so at least I got one. I planted 3 pear trees close to each other: Harrow Sweet, Harrow Delight and Lucious. They all survived their first winter, so I am happy.
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Thanks. Last fall I spent a month tasting all the different pears I could find from several orchards. Those were my top three.
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Those pears look wonderful, Clark!
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The best part about harrow delight is fireblight hit them last year went 6 inches and stopped on it’s own. They taste very good for an earlier pear!
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Would you consider HD better than Ayers in taste?
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Pretty comparable pears. Some years one is better than the other. Ayers is very good when it is but at times can have an off flavor in the skin. Harrow delight is very good in hot dry climates like this is in the summer. It might not be as good if it had to much water. In this area they are both very good. They are both very resistant to fireblight. Highly recommend both of them.
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Bitter skin. Many pears get that. All my pears love the jungle, don’t expect HD to be any different. Ayers has like a vanilla taste that’s kind of unique to it. It’s not comice, but it doesn’t need six weeks in the fridge either.
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Harrow Delight is a good one. It has a hint of something different in a pleasant way. Bartlett like in flavor. Like harrow sweet the flavors are deeper certain years. Ayers is melting and sugary. Very delicious, refreshing quality pear. These pears are not warren and they dont compare to my small yellow pear. They actually fall short of maxine, potomac, karl favorite, magness and several more in my opinion. They are definately always going to be rated very good. For early pears they are great!
I’m an expert on Ayers. I had like 10 of them from a tag mix up. Most of them have been grafted over to HD and HS. Trying to make most of the trees fridge free. Sadly all the best pears want the fridge.
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Can’t remember the last pear i put in the refrigerator. If it is high quality you wont hardly need to. Sure there are pears like Shenandoah known to get better in storage. Pears like warren are good enough quality they dont need it.
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Comice, bosc, d’anjou are the ones I have in that bracket. I’ve tried without the fridge and it’s always uneven or not at all.
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Warren is a better comice. D’ anjou tastes much like potomac. Harrow sweet is much like bartlett. The disease resistance of the 3 are nice and the flavor is excellent. Clara frijs differs from all of them. It is not got the disease resistance the others do but i do grow some.
Pear issues are pretty rare here. I have a lot of comice and it’s variants. No need for warren. Magnus is my knock off comice. Clara Frijs I don’t know much about, but did consider grafting it.
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