Clark, if you’re in zone 5, Pineapple is an early bloomer, and if you get freezes after
it blooms, you may lose any fruit that has set, so keep that in mind.
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Ray,
I have upwards of 30 other fruiting pear varieties growing here; there should be no shortage of compatible pollen to set crops on any and all pears. Still, no fruit on Magness in 15 years… and the original tree I grafted is still stuck in a nursery bed setting, with 3 or 4 other bearing-age pears( of other varities) within 5 feet of it.
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Lucky, You may just have a dud tree. That happens sometimes in nature.
Clark, if you want to test your ability to get Magness to fruit, I can send you some scionwood. My tree has grown quite well, so I should have plenty, even though it is on quince (4 years in ground). It may flower soon, as I see what I hope are fruit spurs forming.
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Thanks Bob that sounds great I will contact you in Feb or March. I really appreciate it. I currently have a Bartlett, several Douglas pears, 2 Clara frijs , several drippen honey, 2 clapps favorites, and a couple of unknown varieties , 6 kieffers, several duchess, 2 recently grafted seckles, and a couple dozen callery pears I’ve grown as rootstock to graft the new pears. Since I have the extra rootstock it won’t hurt to try to grow magness. I was unsuccessful in growing Atlantic, ayers, or chojuro on my wild callery rootstock so I would assume they are incompatible. I tried about a dozen scions and they greened up leafed out and died about a month later. I’m not sure if I will have those problems with magness. I will need to order some modern rootstock from cummins nursery if I want to grow those other types of pears. I may have a Madame Boutant pear that took but I don’t know for sure. Bob let me know what I can send you and I will pay shipping as well. Thanks
Lucky,
Keep me informed if it blooms. Maybe I should tie the branches of magness down early on to get it to fruit. The pineapple pear sounds like it would give me plenty of pears while I wait. I dug up a callery last spring and went back and the roots I left behind grew 3 more rootstock about 2 ’ in growth now so I actually have close to 30 rootstocks waiting to be grafted.
Oikos has bundles of wild pears which I bought last year as well to experiment with as rootstock http://oikostreecrops.com though they won’t be ready to graft for awhile. The cummins pear rootstock ohxf… seems a better way to go long term for the ones that were incompatible with my current rootstock http://www.cumminsnursery.com/pearroot.htm. I considered using that ohxf333 for magness and ordering Pyrus betulifolia for the Asian pears such as Korean Giant , and chojuro etc that I would like to grow. As good as the warren pear sounds in the descriptions such as this http://www.davewilson.com/product-information/product/warren-pear it seems no one I know has ever got it produce much in spite of the fact they are experts at growing pears.
Rayrose,
Would you be willing to send me a couple of sticks from pineapple and I could trade you for other scions or pay postage?
Sure, just remind me in January. I’ll send you some Ayers too,
Ray
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Thank you Ray
I second Pineapple. Produced after 2 years in the ground for me. It was pretty good, but I think I picked it too early. The Thrashers, however, apparently don’t care if it’s completely ripe. I had 8 pears - they got 3 or 4 of them before I got them covered with screening. Damned Thrashers. Those and the Mockingbirds are really tough on my trees. I just put my order in for Warren, Magness and Harrow Sweet. So, will be interested to see how they all fare for me, especially Harrow Sweet, which I suspect needs more CH than either Magness or Warren, which are both pretty low (400-600 CH). Very glad this thread is still going, and I found an interesting article written by David Karp a few years ago, our resident “colorful” fruit journalist out here in S. California on the Warren pear, not sure if anyone has posted this link or not, but an interesting read, especially where he talks about Warren and Magness actually being distict cultivars, but probably “siblings”:
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Thanks for the link. Sounds like you selected some great pears to grow. Warren might take a little more patience than I have but I suspect on quince or 333 rootstock it would be a good one. On standard stock I bet it can be a frustrating pear to grow. Let us know how yours does.
Thanks, Clark. Warren will be on 333, the other two on OHxF87. So, will be interesting to see how they do. About 60% of my pears are on 333, the rest with one exception are on 87. My Comice is on 97 for some unknown reason.
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I reluctantly put in warren this year and so far it’s growing like a weed. I did not expect it to do that well here. In comparison with other pears it really performed well. Ewart is growing very good. Magness is very slow growing so far. Seckle was very slow growing again this year. Worden is very slow growing like Seckle. I keep adding duchess pear trees because they come into bearing in two to three years. They are excellent quality pears. Potomac is another very fast grower that looks like a winner. The harrow pear trees are all excellent by what I’ve seen so far. Harvest queen is fast growing and very disease resistant so far. Douglas is fast growing and should fruit soon. Clara frijs is a great pear and will hopefully produce next year. Ayers seems like it will be a good one. The other new European pears I grow are to small to know their performance so far.
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I planted a dozen types of pears this spring in Dallas, and Warren is also my fastest growing pear. 8 ft tall after 4 months. On Cally.
Have one on quince at another location, grows 6" / year
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Based on the comments on this thread that Warren is a dud for producing pears, I have a 5th leaf Warren and have yet to see a flower on the tree much less fruit. I’m giving up and going to re graft to something else this winter.
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Chris if you have the room I’ve read from many resources since I originally made this post warren is an excellent quality pear when it starts producing. It might be a 5-12 year wait depending on location, roostock, soil etc. It comes from a cross of Seckle X Comice which are two of the best pears that have ever been grown. See this article before you top work it http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/25/food/la-fo-market-watch-20111125 . I know it’s shortcomings and if you top work it I would not blame you. My advice at least leave a limb warren. By the time 5 years pass warren will likely be producing loads of pears. When you top work a tree to duchess as an example it will be 2-3 years until you get your first pears. At 5 years growth your going to be waiting a 2–3 years either way. That’s the nature of pears. If you have the room you could put in another pear like duchess on ohxf333 and be eating pears in 3 years the same as if you top work warren. What rootstock is warren on I’m assuming callery?
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Personally, I would wait. But it’s a free country.
Who knows. Next year, and everything year thereafter, you might get a bounty of pears.
Magness, it’s sibling, is notorious for being slow to bear, but once it starts coming, the tree is loaded every year. Magness is my absolute favorite pear at the local farmstand. I have it planted on 87 and 333 rootstocks in the hopes of speeding up the process.
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Chris,
Some pear take up to 10 years to bear fruit. If you graft it over. You may want to leave a few branches of Warren.
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Checking back in.
I think the Magness tree finally produced a pear or two - but I missed them.
Warren has been fruiting here, almost annually for at least 5-6 years. It’s a really shy bearer, compared to any other pear variety in the orchard - To date, I’ve never had to worry about fruit load even bending a branch slightly, much less any concern about the broken branches that are a constant threat on almost every other bearing-age tree.
I suppose it’s a top-quality dessert pear… nice flavor, but it’s soft, with no grit cells…it’s a ‘textural’ thing… that almost makes me throw up in my mouth a little… and everyone in my family has the same reaction… “(shudder) Yuck! that’s too soft/mushy!”… but my neighbor next door likes them… so I just pick 'em all and take them to her.
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