Leona Pear

Bradybb · 2016-08-30T05:31:47.782Z

Here is a website that has some Pears listed,including Leona. Brady

The Bell House - Growing Fruit Trees in Northwest Houston

Pear Tasting 2012

Last Thursday was the annual Gulf Coast Fruit Study Group pear tasting event, and their 25th anniversary celebration. It is because of the dedicated efforts of the GCFSG that we have as much...

clarkinks · 2016-08-30T08:46:06.219Z

Brady,
That’s pretty informative. In that taste test Leona did not get good reviews. It may be lucky I just had enough scion for one tree.

fruitility · 2016-08-30T15:33:36.470Z

I have attended that pear event multiple times, and it really is good. However, one of the benefits of home grown fruit is that they can be picked at the optimum time for the best eating, and trying to pick a lot of different fruit at the same time for this meeting does not in any way equal that. A snapshot taken when the event was planned rather than when a grower hand picked a few at their prime for fresh eating. Like a snapshot of a human when posing rather than during a sneeze. Typically, some of the fruit samples may be under-ripe, and some can be past prime, but since the number of tasters greatly outnumber the available small chunks, you don’t get to eat enough to get a thorough sampling. When I wanted to let a guy sample some of these same varieties a few years ago, I hand picked several of each variety when they were close to prime, and he ate them over a period of days. His evaluation would have been more useful. Like the old story about 3 blind men each getting to touch a part of an elephant and then describe what “an elephant” is like. One small sample does not an evaluation make.

Bradybb · 2016-08-30T16:01:08.370Z

I did post the link mostly for the photo.From other reviews and opinions about the Pear,it does seem like the quality is better than the author’s. Brady

clarkinks · 2016-08-30T19:22:42.111Z

We will see how they taste. They are very strong growing pears. I can always graft them over later if we don’t like them.

wildscaper · 2016-08-30T20:39:03.862Z

Everyone I know who has ever eaten one has said it is a top notch pear at least in the South were it is typically grown. I bet if anything it will be better for you with a longer rest period.

clarkinks · 2016-08-30T21:15:07.888Z

Wildscaper,
Glad to read your opinion after having read the review on that link.

Bhawkins · 2016-08-30T23:38:13.269Z

I went to that event about 2013, didn’t really like any of the pears. Hopefully they were picked, sat around for the event, and weren’t prime.

clarkinks · 2017-05-21T23:33:42.715Z

Leona is already 8 feet tall and this year I’m not holding it back . It’s got an autumn olive on each side of it improving the soil.

clarkinks · 2017-06-02T20:24:30.896Z

Trimmed the autumn olives to give leona some air and used the branches as mulch for Leona. Leona is around 10 - 12’ now.

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clarkinks · 2017-07-04T02:25:28.510Z

Leona just won’t stop growing here! This pear is going to be a monster and I’m going to let it be. It’s completely resistant to fireblight so far. The fast growth may not be an indicator of when it will fruit but most pears do fruit when they hit 20 feet or so in my experience. The reason why I think pears produce fruit here at that height is they get down into the water table and tons of rich minerals. The top 2-3’ of soil has been farmed hard here by grain farmers but these untapped super rich minerals are down there where the water is!

clarkinks · 2018-01-19T16:43:51.218Z

Leona is showing no signs of spurring up yet so it is going to be a slow to produce pear. Typically with many pears you would see a few Spurs by now. Leona will eventually grow to a height it wants and start spurring out. I’m not going to stop it but I might add a few other scions to the tree and encourage the tree to produce fruit.

clarkinks · 2019-04-01T08:37:35.844Z

Spring 2019 and the tree is showing no signs at all of fruit spurs which is somewhat unusual. That typically means it wont fruit this year or next. Leona is unusual in many ways but rapid growth, delayed fruiting, and disease resistance seem to be a few of its characteristics. In 2016 i hoped to be posting pictutes of fruit in 2-3 years but that was an unrealistic goal.

jeremymillrood · 2019-04-03T18:58:40.257Z

@clarkinks, good luck with this tree…I have a couple pears that have been slow to fruit…found your comment about 20 ft being when they would start fruiting to be interesting. I’ve got a leconte that fruited at maybe 15 ft…my larger pineapple which is easily 20 ft has yet to fruit, it was pruned pretty heavily last year, not sure if that has anything to do with it… My other pear a flordahome has been really slow grower…hope this one does something for you.

clarkinks · 2019-04-03T19:13:31.495Z

Yes pruning can be a problem because it takes them out of fruiting mode and puts them back in vegetative growth mode. They frequently fruit the first year on the branch tips on the top and guess what everyone prunes off? Yep the tips of branches! @jeremymillrood pears are slow and their idea of a perfect height is seldom ours. The more a pear is managed aside from branch bending the longer it takes to fruit.

Derby42 · 2019-04-03T19:16:53.460Z

I moved my leona pear to a new position on the Ayers pear I grafted it to this spring . Hopefully this will develop into a long lived scaffold of Leona pears.

clarkinks · 2020-02-17T07:57:10.895Z

Leona is now around 20 + feet tall. Check on it once or twice a year but mostly just leave it alone to keep with the autumn olives. Nitrogen fixers like that tend to benefit everything around them which partially explains Leonas rapid growth. Soon i will taste this pear and the world will know much more about this pear and others.

clarkinks · 2020-03-15T00:17:02.591Z

Leona has fruit buds this year. This infamously slow to fruit pear actually just took four years to produce fruit buds! Remember i cheated and had grown a callery 2 years on its own roots and grafted leona leaving as much trunk as possible to account for rabbits and fireblight problems that might come up.

clarkinks · 2020-03-23T16:53:01.756Z

We hit 20 recently but this southern pear is not jumping the gun blooming. Its keeping time with other pears making me believe it may work much further north!

clarkinks · 2020-04-03T01:19:32.646Z

Sweet Sweet Leona your going to be perfect for Kansas. Sometimes we know we got to take risks. Leona is way out there in uncharted territory but for those of you in the North and in the central United States someone needed to bite the bullet and test this one. Leona is just now getting ready to bloom with other pears in April. 4 years since i grafted it to blooms. Leona is rare even in the south mostly because of its reportedly long amount of time to produce pears.
Its a very fast grower reaching at least 25 feet tall now most of which is straight up. Its a pear like none ive grown before because of its obvious desire to grow tall and fast. This can be partly contributed to the fact im growing it between two autum olives. I suspect im the first one outside the south to ever grow this pear. There are half a dozen flower clusters. The rumors of delayed fruiting were greatly exaggerated. Like most of my pears its done great on callery.

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According to ars grin as noted with a link above “Originated in Converse, Louisiana about 1930. Legend has it that this was an unclaimed, mail order tree planted by a postal worker and named for his wife. It has been widely propagated in Louisiana and Texas and we all agree that it is a very sweet, high quality, dessert pear. The large, apple shaped fruit has a distinct ‘shoulder’. It takes a few years to come into full bearing on calleryana. Probably about 400 - 450 chill units. – E. Natelson.”
The fruit according to ars grin looks like these below (not my photos)

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