Here are some of the Orcas I harvested yesterday. This is the 3rd or 4th year my tree has fruited. In my experience, they ripen best after a week or two in cold storage and then a few days on the counter. The flavor, acid/sweet balance, and texture are all very good, reminiscent of Bartlett but one step up in my opinion
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This is just for information. Orcas is a good tasting pear. I had one this morning. But, as a suspected Bartlett seedling, it is as sensitive to fire blight as Bartlett. I lost an entire tree a few years ago to fire blight then regrafted the rootstock to Orcas again. It had a strike last year during a bad fire blight year that I was able to cut out. Unfortunately, it developed blight again this year. I finally cut it back to the rootstock again and I don’t think I’ll regraft it to Orcas. I have another Orcas tree that is topworked to several varieties and it is still blight-free.
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Thanks for the fireblight info, I was wondering about that. I’ve never had fireblight on any of my trees, but I’m guessing it will get here (Western Oregon) eventually.
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I’m looking to properly identify Orcas pears
For me, my Orcas graft has been slow to come into production. It is the highest graft on my tree and has had very vigorous growth. I’m not sure of the growth is the result of graft location, variety, or both. It started getting a few blooms 3-4 years ago with this year being the first year to ripen about half a dozen pears. I had problems with blue jays boring holes in both Rescue and Orcas this year, but I got a few to taste both with and without damage. I am very pleased with my first tastes of Orcas. Very much a high-quality Bartlett type pear, juicy, fine grain, delicious.
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Wow, a pear that looks like a plum Awesome!
@zumo has an excellent pic a few posts up. Definitely Orcas.
Ive grown Orcas for a long time and its been an excellent seller for me both at farmers markets and u pick. We can pick them just as the color starts to break and place in cooler to sell for 4 weeks.
Dont be fooled by the scab resistance claim. Orcas is more susceptible to pear scab than almost any other pear i have seen.
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That is pretty much what mine looks like. Thank you for the confirmation.
If you look what @cdamarjian posted and @Zumo that is absolute confirmation.
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One more thing… Biringer Nursery who used to be a big cooperator with the research station at Mt Vernon and a good local supplier of quality fruit trees for commercial growers, sold a lot of Orcas trees back in the day and on custom orders they would always try to talk growers into using a dwarfing rootstock as Orcas is VERY vigorous.
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