Hey guys, I’ve been reading about a lot of new pear releases like the harrow series. I guess I’m wondering, they seem to be vigorous and resistant, would these come close to the list of no/low spray trees with the likes of figs and persimmons?
Thanks all!
There are a lot of past posts talking about this topic. I’m also in central NC and just put the following in the ground:
Ayers
Warren
Orient
Kieffer
From what I understand these should do pretty well.
I also put in a lot of Asian pears but I’m assuming I’ll have issues with them at some point.
Definitely, check out the fireblight free pear thread though.
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Fireblight destruction from 2023 - 2024 - #3 by k8tpayaso?
Evidently there is a new severe strain of fireblight going around… several members including Clark has been hit with it… and varieties prevoiusly thought to be quite FB resistant… get wiped out from it.
Yes… including kieffer and orient.
I have 2 kieffer trees grafted to callery last spring… kieffer and improved kieffer. They are developing some nice scaffold branches this year.
I was planning to add grafts of orient to them…
Sounds like now I need to completely top work them and perhaps add bell and perhaps clarks yellow pear and ayers… warren.
IDK exactly what to do yet… but kieffer and orient trees and others were killed dead by this new FB.
I had awefull FB here in TN this spring… my new kieffer pears were not blooming yet… so were not affected.
All my apples that were blooming… toasted.
I removed 4 apple trees… that were covered in FB strikes. I kept my Novamac b9 espellar… but removed 20 or so fruit spurs from it that had FB. I was hoping that it would be OK after that… but while watering it yesterday found 3 more shoots on it that have FB.
These were not fruit spurs… or blossoms… but shoots new growth… brown/black wilted, crooked on the end.
I am removing those down to the scaffold branch… have my doubts about it surviving this.
Not sure if what I got this spring was the new FB… but it sure was hard on my apples.
TNHunter
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There is a southern pear interest group on Facebook. They south has had high firelight issues for a long time. @clarkinks will have good suggestions because FB has been bad here for the last several years. The Euro pears mentioned above are good. I would add Maxine, Potomac, Douglas and Duchesse. I grow several highly resistant chance seedling varieties that were brought to me for propagation (Clark’s Small Yellow, Lazy J, TS Hardy) They all seem to have Kieffer genetics. There is not much information on Asian pear FB resistance. Korean Giant is known to be more resistant.
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It’s hard to go by the lists for what is supposed to be fireblight resistant. Fireblight severity seems to depend a lot on when the optimal weather conditions for flreblight infections coincide with flowering. Since that can vary a lot from place to place and year to year, it’s hard to really say what cultivars are truly resistant over the long term. I remember talking to David Vernon of Century Farm Orchards in Reidsville, NC, about Harrow Delight. He said fireblight completely killed his Harrow Delight tree one year, and it’s supposed to be resistant. I’m in central NC, and I never saw any fireblight on my trees until they started to flower. I tried to choose pear cultivars that are resistant to fireblight, and most of those haven’t had more than occasional strikes that I’ve cut out when I saw them. The only pear cultivar I lost completely to fireblight is Raja. This year I’ve had a lot of strikes on Shinseiki and Chojuro, but they aren’t supposed to be that resistant to it. Last year, I had a lot of strikes on Keiffer, but they didn’t spread too far and were easy to remove. I’ve grown Shin Li and Korean Giant for a long time and never had any problems with either of those. Magness has also been very good and disease resistant for me. I really like the first few Drippin Honey fruit I’ve had, but my tree is still pretty young. I have a lot more pears that haven’t fruited yet in any significant quantities, so the jury is still out on those. I’ve had a lot more issues recently with some kind of cedar rust affecting my pear fruit, and with squirrels stealing fruit than I’ve had with fireblight.
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where have you been reading a lot? My Harrow pears were bred in the 60s and released 30-50 years ago. Are there new releases?
If so please add to Clark’s list.
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If you live in area where late frosts are not an issue…
I think your best chance of avoiding FB is to have apple or pear varieties that bloom early… FG1 or FG2.
If you can get your blooming done and fruit set before it warms up too much… no FB.
I never see FB here in the early season when my FG1 and 2 trees are blooming…
But in the last half of FG3 bloom period… it starts showing up… my Gold Rush was the first one to show FB strikes… on its later blossoms… last half of FG3 period.
One other FG3 tree… same thing… and i had a couple of Fg4 trees and they had some early blossoms that bloomed and set fruit but about the time they were in full bloom… FB starts showing up all over them.
When it gets to a specific level of warmness with rain and actively blooming pears or apples… it is going to happen.
Novamac is rated very resistent to FB… it is FG4… and it got a load of FB just like the others that were blooming when it was warmer and wet.
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Here is a list of pears with varying levels of fireblight tolerance. Do some due diligence by searching for them on the forum and reading comments. I have all of these grafted on callery rootstock.
Ayers
Bell
Blake’s Pride
Clarks Yellow
Drippin Honey
Harrow Delight
Harrow Sweet
Hood
Kieffer
Magness
Maxine
Potomac
Seckel
Shenanadoah
Sunrise
Tyson
Warren
You might also look up Yoinashi asian pear.
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Yes. Fireblight really shows up late May into the Summer here. No surprise the height of wet and hot season.
When I hear of disease resistant plants I usually laugh and laugh and laugh. We will see I say back.
Being lab resistant and field resistant are two seperate planets in different solar systems. Mileage more often then not varies.