Pear blooming chart, spec. Honeysweet

Susu · April 22, 2020, 12:15am

I don’t grow Honey Sweet but I absolutely love Harrow Sweet. I got fruit year after grafting. I keep grafting it to everything. It has a long bloom period. Mine are still in bloom right outside Philly area.
Sounds like everybody is waiting for their Honey Sweet to bloom. I think you should get harrow sweet, if not for anything just to get fruit sooner. Then you can graft few varieties on two trees and you’ll never have to worry about pollination.

Susu · April 22, 2020, 12:41am

By the way, I also have a Moonglow tree. But I can’t say anything good or bad about it since I’m still waiting on fruit.

PharmerDrewee · April 22, 2020, 1:20am

I’m in PA but don’t grow Honey Sweet yet. I think I’m grafting it this year though so hopefully I can provide feedback in the future.

@Susu So the rumors of how fast it produces are true. Glad you like Harrow Sweet. I went to AC Nursery and grabbed one this year to plant.

EDIT Here is a pollination chart I found.
https://www.acnursery.com/resources/pollination-charts/pear-chart
It does not list Honey Sweet or Moonglow, but Harrow Sweet is listed as a potential pollinator for practically everything.

DMend · April 22, 2020, 1:31am

Hi @Palmer, I picked Honey sweet on the last week of August last year. First week of September the year before. I saw one pear on the ground and did a tilt test.

alanmercieca · September 6, 2020, 11:59pm

So Honey sweet is best picked when ripe and they don’t need refrigeration? Do the pears come off easily when they should be picked? Do they have to be eaten right away?

This year the tree has one pear on it, the first non aborted pear we have had on the tree, and I don’t want to pick it at the wrong time, it being the only one.

DMend · September 7, 2020, 2:15pm

Like most European pears, it needs to be picked before ripe. I just give them the tilt test, they come right off easily by this time of the year in my location. Yes, it needs to be stored for a week or two until it turns yellow. Once ripe, they won’t last long. Unfortunately for me, this year I ended up with about four pears from a 10 foot tree, squirrels are vicious this year.

alanmercieca · September 8, 2020, 6:50am

I think that it’s ready then. I will check it very soon. Thank you for the response.

DMend · September 8, 2020, 11:26am

You’re welcome! It’s a very sweet pear, I hope you like it.

alanmercieca · September 12, 2020, 6:27am

Yes, it sure is a sweet pear, alright, Thursday September 10th 2020 it was finally ready to be picked. I tilted it up and down and it come off, at first with the tilt it did not come off, yet when I was about to let go of the pear it fell suddenly to ground. A slight delay coming off. It was still very greenish, and still very raw, yet the spot that the sun hit the most hot, and the most direct, that spot smelled syrupy and so sweet, while the rest of it looked and smelled raw. What looked like a soft spot was not at all, it smelled so sweet and syrupy, yummm.

Of course I am not going to eat a raw pear, just because a spot of the pear has such a deceptive smell, that spot is just as raw as the rest of it. That night I put it in to a brown paper bag, that bag went in to the fridge.

Tonight I was reading about this variety on the ‘U.S. National Plant Germplasm System’ again and I realized that they said this variety can be picked ripe off the tree. Although what is the quality when picked ripe off the tree, and can it always be picked ripe off the tree. When I have a large enough crop I will check it out, so that I can understand better. The fruit of this variety has a lot of traits from the ‘Seckel’ part of it’s DNA, even though it’s classified as a European cultivator. @DMend

mamuang · September 27, 2021, 1:26am

@clarkinks
Have your Honey Sweet fruited yet?

@DMend - upthread Clark posted a description of Honey Sweet, it is “ripens to golden russet”. I am trying to figure out whether or not its skin is russeted

clarkinks · September 27, 2021, 2:05am

@mamuang

The fruitlets have not stayed on. Here are what they look like. Multiple sources Veseys. Gurneys, Raintree, Cummins and Starks look identical to all the photos I’ve seen. Those are their photos not mine. There will be some variation in color based on amount of sun, heat, cold and other factors. As orange pippin would say " Honeysweet is a self-fertile small late-season sweet pear, with buttery flesh, related to Seckel."

clarkinks · September 27, 2021, 2:19am

@DMend @mamuang

Would say this pear looks very much like the description of honeysweet. The large pores , small size all match. Was that grown in a shaded area?

mamuang · September 27, 2021, 2:52am

Mine may not be a real Honey Sweet. It is the one in the middle. It has golden rusetted skin.

![

clarkinks · September 27, 2021, 6:39am

It’s still possible that it is right. How many pears did you get? I don’t think you have enough for a good sample yet of honeysweet. Maxine, seckle, and Blake’s bride are for sure what you said. Aurora I’m not 100% sure of but see know reason it wouldn’t be right.

DMend · September 27, 2021, 8:04am

@mamuang @clarkinks All my Honey sweet were harvested at the beginning of September. Some had russet, some didn’t. Here’s a picture of the last one we kept in the fridge.

mamuang · September 27, 2021, 11:05am

I have only one Honey Sweet this year. It is in a very shady area.
I personally trust pics from certain nurseries such as Cummins, ACN and Fedco. Several nurseries just copy others. If the pics were wrong, they would copy it wrongly, too.

The GRIN description is what I compare mine to. Hopefully, I will have more from this graft next year.

@Dmend. Thanks for showing your pic.

@clarkinks I got Aurora from Scott Smith so I think mine is correct.

alanmercieca · September 27, 2021, 1:56pm

The one edible pear that I had from it so far, last year, none of the pears made it this year! The first photo is the fruit cut in half, the second photo was whole, one side of the pear was much darker than the other side.

The fruit was left on the tree a little too long, and then I did not leave it in the fridge long enough out of fear that the soft spot inside would rot the pear out. That and it was it’s first year, it was like a not sweet Asian pear with no flavor.

clarkinks · September 27, 2021, 2:17pm

@alanmercieca

Don’t judge them to much by the first year or two. Give pears 3 years or more of fruit then you will know what you have.

alanmercieca · September 28, 2021, 10:41am

I certainly plan to give it more time, since they are supposed to be so good, the main problem for me has been the little to no production, the root stock the nursery put it on ‘is OHxF 513 root stock’. 5 years and 1 pear to show for it.

I forget to mention that a tiny spot of the pear was sort of sweet and had a mild flavor, I was surprised because the part of the pear that the sun hit most directly it smelled like sugary syrup, yet even the sort of sweet part ‘the sweetness was underwhelming.’

This year there was more pears on the tree yet the fruit got hit by disease, the tree it’s self was fine, one of the fruit was hit by ‘cedar-quince rust’, as I shared here Pear Fruit infestation, the others pears I think they had the same thing yet the pears were no where near as bad looking.

clarkinks · May 3, 2023, 2:15am

@SlateBeltScott

As i mentioned honeysweet is self fertile. If you want pollinators i listed them below and where you go to find that information. Harrow sweet will pollinate it.

Self-fertility: Self-fertile
Pollination group: 3

"Honeysweet was developed in the 1950s and 1960s in a collaboration between Rutgers and Purdue Universities.

Honeysweet is also a parent of the popular Ambrosia pear also released by Purdue University."

" Varieties that will pollinate Honeysweet in our catalog