Which of your pears hit the 10 mark?
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That small yellow pear i grow is a 10 sometimes. When it hits it no pear can compare to it. It is a lot of trouble to grow it and get high quality pears.
Iām aware you do not start these rumors that go around. We have researched many pears through the years.
No thats not true. The process produces a sterile fruit that lacks seeds or as many. There are a couple of different types of parthenocarpy.
Actually, there are a few dozen different types of parthenocarpy. If you want to wrap your mind around a good one, find out about arrhenotokus parthenocarpy which is how honeybees reproduce. My statement is accurate. " In botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules which makes the fruit seedless.ā
Please learn more about parthenocarpy. Several different genes can produce seedless fruit. Parthenocarpy means fruit is produced without viable seed. A seedless watermelon is an example of stenoparthenocarpy. A seedless cucumber is vegetative parthenocarpy (the type most parthenocarpic fruits exhibit).
Do due diligence please, Iām pointing out that you have the wrong concept of parthenocarpy. One of the hardest things I had to learn in life is that sometimes I donāt know what I am talking about. Also, crow is best eaten fresh. The older it gets, the worse it smells.
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A pear that produces in that way lacks seeds. You dont even have warren fruit or flowers. There are actually a couple of types of parthenocarpy in pears. We are not talking about honeybees or watermelons. You are speaking as someone with experience in growing many pears but dont have the experience of acres of pears" Vegetative parthenocarpy implies that the fruit developed without pollination, while stimulative parthenocarpy indicates that they developed as a result of the stimulus of pollination ." What your doing is attempting to attack someone with practical knowledge who has seen warren pear flowers not produce fruits or produce fruits. I know how many flowers of each flowe bundle will fruit. My suggestion if you wa t to look smarter than me on pears that you plant a few acres of them.
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You made a statement that Warren self-fertile. I did due diligence and from available information concluded that Warren is not self-fertile or if it is, it is not fully self-fertile. I made a statement that you have not proven it is self-fertile and also not determined if it is parthenocarpic.
This is not about a personal attack and Iām not one bit interested in making you feel that it is. It is about posting accurate information in a public forum. I repeat, you do not know that Warren is or is not self-fertile and you donāt know it is or is not parthenocarpic. I did minimal due diligence to conclude that Warren is NOT self-fertile. However, there is no conclusive study proving this one way or the other. Read, study, and learn. There is something we all have to contribute on this forum. Also, donāt listen to the person who shouts loudest, listen to the one who provably knows what he/she is talking about. That applies to both you and me.
Why even bring up it is parthenocarpic and start that rumor? Where did your information or hypothesis come from? If iām wrong about warren, being self pollinating noone will question where i got my information. What iām asking you is where did you come up with the idea of parthenocarpy? You thought up the idea but no one has posted that anywhere. Read , study, learn, and then go apply it and throw away half of what you read, studied, and learned. Im trying to prevent more misinformation. The rumor of magness and warren being the same pear went on for years. @mayhaw9999 knew Warren personally as his mentor but im doubting even warren knew if it was fully self pollinating or partial. Most of us are former NAFEX like Warren and share enthusiasm as such. What we do know is warren was growing by itself and producing pears while staying alive. Does that sound pollen sterile? Hardly proof by itself. There could have been callery nearby we just know what the experts say until someone produces something to the contrary.
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It is the concept of eliminating the obvious. I donāt know anything about Warren being parthenocarpic (or not!). I know that if any plant is being tested for self-pollination capability you also have to eliminate whether or not that plant is parthenocarpic. It is a fairly simple test, bag flowers, self-pollinate them, see if they develop seed. If all the fruit abort, it is self-sterile. If a few fruit form but not as many as for normal pollinated flowers, it is partially self-fruitful. If a normal crop of fruit is set, it is self-fruitful. If a normal crop develops but the fruit have no seed, it is both self-sterile and parthenocarpic.
You canāt go anywhere in Hattiesburg MS without seeing a few dozen pear trees per mile. Honeybees will fly up to 2 miles to find pollen in early spring. Pear pollen is not ideal, but they will go after it with zeal if it is the only flower available - as is typical in early spring. Point ābeeingā that if the original Warren tree was growing by itself, it was highly unlikely to have been too far from another pear tree.
If you want to do actual experiements we will do them next year. The trees im growing are from scion from corvalis and we can be sure they are warren and not magness. There is a small difference when the magness and warren ripen here but it is not much. Warren does much better for me. Iām trying a couple dozen warren on BET to force more growth.
I mentioned that I think that Warren will set a few fruit parthenocarpically and I do know what that means. I have 13 varieties of Diospyros kaki and 5 named varieties of D. virginiana plus one male D. virginiana (it did not leaf out this year). The Asian persimmons set fruit parthenocarpically and are seedless as I donāt have a tree with male blossoms that blooms at the same time. The male virginiana tree blooms so late that the female trees are almost always seedless.
So, the reason I said that Warren may set a few fruit parthenocarpically is that I have noticed seedless fruit in the past and was told that that was a possibility by some of the gurus at a Dave Wilson Nursery
fruit tasting many years ago. But, that information may have been erroneous! So, this year I will check for seedless fruit. Then next year I will do the test for self-fertility as suggested. Like Clark, I have so many pears growing that I must isolate the blooms to prevent cross fertilization. I was just hoping that some scientific paper had been published to settle this issue.
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We are definitely on the same page where we want to know more. Maybe we can do the experiment together in the spring as a group. Several of us grow warren. In my opinion it has a tendency towards biennial bearing if it does yield very heavy the previous year. Many pears or pomes for that matter do that. Like you, i was hoping the work was done for us, but there is no money in it for scientists at this point. When Warren discovered the best discovery of pears in 100 years, it mostly went ignored because many could not profit from the pear. We still know the value of it which in my opinion could surpass the value of any pear sold today. We need to test the pear in a location outside California as well because of the areas tendency to produce a few parthenocarpic fruit on a non parthenocarpic variety. As example bartlett aka williams is parthenocarpic in California but we know outside California in a place like Kansas it is not parthenocarpic. Iām bringing this up because for a few warren to be parthenocarpic in California for Dave Wilson or a California grower like yourself is very different from being parthenocarpic everywhere. @alan taught me years ago about the California climate. Think we might be wise to test best pollinators while we are at it.
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There is a huge difference between zones 9 and 6a. Pollination or no pollination.
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Warren is by far one of the most resistant trees to fireblight but still has strikes this year. 2023 seems to have been cursed with fireblight. It has never been worse.
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Well, thatās another issue. Clarkinks source suggested that Warren was precocious, which I hadnāt seen other places.
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David Vernon from Century Farm orchards sells Warren and says it is a good pollinating pear for the deep South, more resistant to fireblight than Kieffer. But takes at least 5 years to bear.
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I have flower buds on Warren 3 years after grafting. But!!! I grafted on a 5 inch diameter rootstock so the tree has grown and expanded rapidly. So far, all flower buds appear to be on terminals.
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Last year we discussed doing the self-pollination experiment. So, before any Warren blossoms opened, I put Agribon bags that my dear wife sewed for me over two small limbs. I removed the bags today. Warren blooms are all off the tree and pears are forming on other branches. I did not manually cross-pollinate the blooms in the bags but shook and tapped the bags often. Not a single pear set on either branch. Iām sure that a pomological scientist would find fault with my methods but I think this experiment indicates that Warren is not self-fertile. The control is the rest of the tree.
Did anyone else do the experiment?
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I found a couple of pears on my Warren tree, both about 2 inches long and 1.5 inches diameter. It was grafted spring 2020 with scionwood from LuckyP. From appearance, the tree will be large enough for a huge crop next spring. Note from above that I grafted on a 5 inch diameter rootstock which pushed very rapid growth.
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