Clark I am surprised your Magness is slow-growing, I have had two and both have been hard to keep under control (even on quince). I have half a dozen pears on my Magness this year, it will be the first year I get fruit assuming the deer don’t beat me to all of them.
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Scott,
It surprised me to. I’m hoping next year it will grow better.
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Mine grew slow this summer also
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Derby since you and I are a state apart maybe there is something local to this area magness does not care for. Maybe that hot sun this summer?
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Possibly you could be onto something.
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Have you tried girdling the tree, or maybe that doesn’t work on pears.
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You guys have convinced me to save my 5 year Warren tree from the chopping block and give it a few more years. Boy, growing pear trees is a true exercise in patience.
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Pears for your heirs. Everyone says pears are easy to grow until they grow them 
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I said above I thought Ayers was not compatible on my wild callery but I stand corrected as seen in this post An untagged pear wound up being Ayers - Been wanting that variety. One branch did take on one of these stubborn wild callery.
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I see your family is like my family with the soft/mushy thing not being liked at all. That is my dilemma so far. Finding a pear that isn’t a soft mushy mess. That “smooth, buttery” description always turns me away from any variety. I just read " mushy mess" when I read it. What varieties do you grow or have found not to be like that? I had a Kieffer pear that ate more like an apple than a pear, unless you left it way too long. It made great pear butter. I am ordering a Kiefer pear tree this year to put in my orchard but I need to find one or two more varieties to grow as well.
I have a six year graft of Ayers on Callery. No issues from compatibility to date.
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The thing about some of the wild calleries in my area is they are nearly imcompatible with everything. Some callery strains graft fine the first time. I’ve noticed some types of pears that are a specific variety eg. Magness might not be true to type when you get them so it’s best to get scions from two sources and graft 2 trees if you have the room and if scions are available. I requested magness from the USDA this year and will try again with a different stick of magness and see how it grows. I may have requested some more magness from singing tree. I was going to order from Bob Purvis this year and the list came out very late and most scions I aquired other places. I might need to look at Bobs list again and make sure there is nothing I overlooked.
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@clarkinks. I’m growing out some seedling Callery from a landscaping Bradford type callery ( It could be one of the improved varieties with a better crotch angle) – how do these hold up for compatibility? I’m probably going to end up grafting a lower chill pear (most of which hybrids) such as Hood, Flordahome, Kieffer and Fanstil.
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Kieffer I know will graft excellent to those. If you need to graft kieffer to the callery and graft the others to it. The others may graft fine but then again they may not. Many people use an interstem of a more compatible pear like old home farmingdale and graft everything to that.
You might try seckel. I like eating them when they’re still a bit crisp, although the skin is a little thicker than some pears… Or maybe it just seems that way since they’re smaller pears so there is more skin in each bite.
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By the way @Lucky_P I grafted half my warren over to Karl’s favorite which I was smiling about and thinking of your little trick when I did it. Did the same thing with Magness on kieffer and Duchess so thanks for the tip! Those bees will know they were tricked every time they hit a magness and warren bloom. Lol
My Warren pear is now about 10 or 11 years old and it has been a heavy producer for the last 4 years, light in the beginning, first year.This past summer it had an ungodly amount.
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How would you rate the taste?
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Warren pear for me rate about as good as it get. When you have so many good varieties to choose from , you name it and you like to grow just a couple of tree’s , for me it going to be a Warren. I only grow one European type the rest are all asian. I am totally happy with just this one.
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I have a similar report, 10+ yrs.bering heavy last few,a good pear,
No fire blight.
I am just not a good judge of when to pick,anyone have advice on that?
I have picked to early and they did not sweeten up
If I wait to long , they end up on the ground.
How does one tell when it’s time to pick pears.?
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