Potomac will be a shy bearer at first for about 3-5 years then it will fully mature. It takes about 7-10 years for a potomac to fully mature then it gets covered in pears. Warren is similar but has a very different problem. @mamuang flowers look great but less than half will make fruit most likely. My secrret to growing warren is to grow it with Karls favorite. Karls favorite is perfect to pollinate warren. Warren will always produce much less than other pears but the quality makes up for the shy production. Karls favorite is a heavy producer and good quality also. Magness is also a light producer but in addition it gets fireblight. At my property it has never had signifigant fireblight. It all depends how far south you are. This is magness and you can see out of that cluster only one or 2 flowers was pollinated.
This year magness and warren are absolutely loaded. These 2 pears are sensitive to age and pollination which seems to be all that keeps them from producing heavy crops every year.
In other threads, we have discussed the pollination of Warren and Magness. In my opinion, there is a lot of incorrect information about these pears. We all know that Magness is pollen sterile and I think Warren is also though some say otherwise. What we do know, as Clark has mentioned, is that both set light crops most years and I have emphasized that wind pollination seems necessary. I have only had one year out of 20 fruiting years when Warren set a limb-breaking crop. This year, as usual, a very light crop. My Magness is loaded on the windward side and has a good fruit set on the leeward side. Jana’s Pear (I think another Warren) is similar to the Magness. Both trees are near other blooming pears while Warren is not. This year I grafted a Karl’s Favorite on the windward side of Warren hoping that will help!
Thanks. Will be sure to train Karl’s over to windward of shy, difficult Warren. Here Magness produces 10 x Warren production maybe because I have pears upwind of Magness but not upwind of Warren. You may have solved my puzzle.
From Greenmantle Nursery website (not sure of the date, but likely before Oregon genetic results). I think the backstory on differences between Magness and Etter breeding is interesting. And the differences between the pears seem to generally confirm what others have posted.
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PEAR PERPLEX:
Magness, Warren …and Etter
Two of our favorite Fall pear varieties are Magness and Warren. We use the number two with some ambivalence since many pear enthusiasts now believe them to be the same identical variety. They certainly do look and taste very similar. Nevertheless, there are some differences that need to be considered before this identity can be resolved; perhaps someday genetic testing will be able to solve this - and many other - nomenclature puzzles.
The Magness Pear was introduced with much fanfare by the USDA in 1968. It represented the culmination of many years of breeding research that focused on combining high quality with resistance to pear diseases, particularly fireblight. The variety was named in honor of Dr. John R. Magness, the head of the USDA’s apple and pear breeding programs for three decades. Dr. Magness was a vocal advocate for the"Best with the Best" approach to hybridization. His namesake pear, derived from a cross of Comice with Seckel, serves as a fruitful example of this philosophy’s potential for success. Some other notable instances include the apple varieties Jonagold and Spigold, both bred at Geneva NY.
Family Portrait: Comice, Magness & Seckel Pears
Dr. Magness’ breeding theories, of course, were completely at odds with Albert Etter’s notion that “wide” crosses would produce the most useful results. In 1936 Etter had sent Magness a sample box of his apple varieties, hoping to have them reviewed in the USDA’s forthcoming Yearbook of Agriculture for 1937 that was dedicated to advances in plant breeding. Unfortunately, Dr. Magness chose to ignore both Etter and his apple varieties; he obviously could not bring himself to grant credibility to a self-taught, independent eccentric like Etter. Disappointed and embittered, old Albert came to view Magness as his personal nemesis: the man who symbolized the narrow-minded conservatism of the official pomological establishment.
Ironically, modern plant breeders now tend to reject Dr. Magness; “the Best with Best” approach because it leads to a very narrow, dead-end genetic base. Instead, wider, wilder crosses are made to produce a generation of parents with more diversity; this can then be refined in further crosses to produce offspring that combine conventionally acceptable flavor and appearance with other critical qualities like disease resistance. In a sense, modern fruit breeding has hybridized the main stream philosophy of Magness with the more adventurous attitude of Etter.
And now we introduce T. O. Warren and the Warren Pear to our story. Mr. Warren, of Hattiesburg MS, was a Founding Father of the North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX), and one of its most beloved characters. He was a leading authority on practical fruit culture in the Deep South and helped countless novices learn how to graft and grow fruit trees under the difficult conditions of his region.
Around 1978, T. O. Warren informed his fellow fruit enthusiasts about a new pear variety he had discovered in an abandoned orchard in Mississippi. This Warren Pear not only distinguished itself with excellent flavor and attractive appearance; it seemed immune to the dread fireblight that plagues most pears and many apples in the South. Soon afterward, Mr. Warren began very generously to distribute scionwood of his new pear to friends, neighbors, and nurseries who were eager to give it a try.
The Warren pear was well-received by home orchardists who were pleased by its many good qualities. However, after a few years many pear growers began to notice that the Warren variety closely resembled Magness, and a rumor began to circulate that the two were identical.
When questioned about the possibility that he mistakenly re-named an already established pear variety, Mr. Warren explained that the “abandoned orchard” where he discovered his new variety was actually the remains of a test site used by Mississippi State University. It seems obvious that the Warren Pear originated as a Comice X Seckel selection from the same USDA program that developed the Magness variety. So the question remains: Is the Warren Pear identical to Magness or is it a genetically similar sibling? And if Warren is a sister variety, is it distinctive and superior enough to justify its continued cultivation?
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After due consideration, we are now inclined to the opinion that Magness and Warren are “distinct”, but closely related varieties - and that each has virtues lacking in the other. In certain respects, the Warren pear might be regarded as an improvement over Magness since it seems to correct two faults of the latter:
1. Magness is definitely pollen sterile and cannot fertilize itself or other varieties. This deficiency can make it somewhat slow to come into production and a shy producer in its first crops. The Warren pear appears to be self-fertile.
2. Though immune to fireblight in leaf and branch, the Magness has under extreme conditions shown infection in its trunk. This may not be a problem in most regions but is nevertheless a factor to consider. T. O. Warren’s selection obviously survived under Mississippi’s blight-favoring conditions and is probably resistant in both branch and trunk.
While the Warren pear does have these advantages, Magness still might have a slight edge in the quality department. From our own experience, we would say that the Magness pear is a heavier producer of somewhat larger, better-colored fruit compared to the Warren. The difference is not dramatic, but still noticeable. Most home orchardists should choose one or the other without too much deliberation; after all, they are almost identical. Or - if space permits - consider growing them both. Magness and Warren are two of the finest flavored and most productive pear varieties available. And it might be fun someday to taste them side by side and add your own piece to the puzzle…
Which fruits faster between Magness and Warren?
I don’t think you will get a straight answer re Warren/Magness fruiting precociousness. My Warren and Magness are grafted on a single rootstock tree. Warren had 8 pears this year which is the 5th grown season since grafting. Magness did not bloom. Others have had the exact opposite experience.
I agree with @Fusion_power i have spoke with people who did not get a warren pear in 15 years and i was getting loads of them in less than 7. My trees magness and warren produce very heavy. Magness is the later to produce of the two for me. Magness does very well on ohxf333 or ohxf87 and i prefer warren growing on callery. I added magness to kieffer many years ago and it never did bloom. I highly recommend grafting karls favorite on the same tree or nearby warren. My warren produced by the 5th year on callery easily it may have been sooner. .