Hi my fruit growing friends,
I would be grateful for your advice on low chill pear varieties and rootstock. I have clay soil, live in sunset zone 24, usda 9b, and lots of either wind or fog depending upon the year. Comice is my favorite pear, but, at 600 chill hours, it would need more than I have. I need a fire blight resistant variety. My Asian pears produce so few fruits, it is sad. (I am not sure of the varieties.) Finally, I am looking for desert pears, not for cooking or canning and would much prefer to eat them straight off of the tree since I do not have fridge space for the “ripening in the fridge for 2 months then on the counter” ordeal.
What varieties, if any, would you recommend? Is that ripening in the fridge thing a deal breaker? I prefer a 12-15’ tree so, I think, semi dwarf is what I want.
Thanks!
Hood pear is definitely a winner here.
WOW! Fascinating discussion.Thank you so much!! I searched for low chill pears so I did not find it.
Thanks! Do you have to put Hood into the fridge to ripen?
So I am wondering, do ALL pears have to ripen in the fridge? Maybe I will just try to find some scion wood and graft onto my Asian pears instead of getting an entire tree with hundreds of pounds of fruit.
What root stock do you recommend? I was considering either OHxf333 or OHxf87.
Thanks again
No.
No, just a subset.
It came on OHXF333.
Thank you so much! That is more encouraging. I was beginning to think I should forget growing pears altogether. I just am not going to deal with the fridge ripening process.
I have a 4 Asian pear trees that produce, if I am lucky, 10 tiny fruits a year.
Does hood need a pollinator? Any others you recommend?
Thank you so much!
It is self-fruitful.
Lately, through the posts of my colleague @Stan – I’ve come to believe that pears are similar to their cousin apples in that they have little chilling requirement. Consequently I’ve taken recommendations for taste and fireblight resistance from others here and selected ‘Warren’, ‘Seckel’, and ‘Red Bartlett’. One is here in a 20 gal pot and the other two are on order. I intend to plant them this coming Spring.
One thing to be cautious with: although apples and pears will set fruit here in San Diego, whether they ripen properly is another issue. When I was living in Rancho Penasquitos I grew White Winter Pearmain and Gordon apples. Both of these ripened fine in the summers there (2 decades ago). Now here in western Vista CA, I have greater exposure to marine layer and these do not ripen all the way through. I’m now trying two others to see how they fair.
I don’t see Red Bartlett as having fire blight resistance unfortunately.
It’s a handsome looking pear.
Also I looked again at Gast Growing Trees.
They say all plums and pears can’t ship to Louisiana. It’s obviously a mistake. They probably have lost customers…of course their prices are so high, they’ve probably lost customers anyway.
I have blacklisted that site based on the title alone.
We need more selections than the heart for posts.
Here.
The reason I don’t care for the “Fast Growing Trees” site is the title suggests they are looking for gullible customers. For example, people who don’t realize that the purchase price of a tree is just the down payment.
Fast - Growing - Profit company.
Richard, I know exactly what you mean!
I has been at the same property for over 20 years. This year we have more fog than I have ever seen. None of my fall fruit can ripen!
Ventura county, Somis.
We used to have PERFECT weather for growing. The last few years we either get heat waves that cook everything, HIGH winds and the past two years, FOG. Shoot, it is like we live in coastal WA this year! My pomegranates did not wet fruit, mangos got powdery mildew, etc. Only the cherimoyas seem to like it. We are just under 10 miles from the coast and usually get some spring fog, but it always used to burn off by 10-11:00 am. Now, in the past couple of years, we have fog for weeks on end with no sun!
However, that is still better than wind and temps over 95 degrees which is what we had 3-4 years ago. SIGH,I miss our old weather SO MUCH!!!
Oh! I know the location well.