Pear harvest 2026

[mayhaw9999]

I have decided to do an abbreviated PEAR HARVEST 2026. In the three previous years, I tried to document all of the varieties that fruited for me each year. Unless I have significant new information about a variety, I probably will not post new photos.

This has been an unusual year here in Sebastopol, CA. March was unusually warm, resulting in a severe fire blight epidemic. Long-term apple growers in the area say it is the worst year they have ever seen. That has kept me busy trying to stay ahead of advancing disease in some of the many susceptible pear varieties in my collection. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful some of the time. Several trees and grafts have required removal.

The warm March also resulted in very early ripening. Some peaches and plums have ripened a month early. My earliest ripening pear, Citron de Carmes, ripened so early I missed picking any of the fruit. Starkrimson, Stuttgarter Geishirtle, Ubileen, and Aurora were a month earlier than expected, and Harrow Delight 5 weeks early.

This week, on July 22, I picked the last Butirra Rosata Morettini – crunchy and a little sweet off the tree. They will be better in a week or so.

Yesterday, July 23, Tongre aka Durondeau was changing color, so I checked to see if it was ready. It released easily from the tree. I grafted this variety on April 6, 2025, on a well-established rootstock. Surprisingly, it bloomed and set 5 pears which were thinned to two. The scions were obtained from the USDA Pear Repository in Corvallis at the request of someone who had lived in Belgium, where this is a favorite pear. The information at the Repository shows full ripe to be the 4th week in August or mid-September. I’m usually a couple of weeks ahead of them, so late July is not surprising.

Developed in Belgium 1811

This morning, July 24, I noticed two Flemish Beauty pears on the ground. I’ll pick those and some Beierschmitt later today. This is my first Flemish Beauty fruit, so pictures will be posted soon.

[benthegirl]

Thanks for sharing! I always like your pictures of pears - they’re amazing and make me hungry!

[mayhaw9999]

I had a mistake in the name on the original picture. It has been corrected.

[mayhaw9999]

Yesterday, 7/25/2026, I picked a few Tyson pears. From Pennsylvania, circa 1800. Tyson has the reputation of taking a long time to fruit after planting. I grafted it onto a mature Honeysweet pear, and it fruited in a few years. It is a very good early pear. I think it is better tasting than Harrow Delight and Clapp’s Favorite, but is quite small. It also has good fire blight resistance. My tree had one small strike this year.
Here is an image from 2021:

[mayhaw9999]

On July 24, I picked one variety and started picking another. First was Flemish Beauty. My first crop for this variety, though I had a couple on the tree last year. It was grafted 3/10/2019 on OHxF87. I have three other varieties planted in the same hole and all have been fruiting several years. This one has not been precocious! It also has a little scab. Not serious, but almost every fruit has a few scab lesions. I notice scab on only a few pear varieties - I think Potomac is the variety with the most problem.

Here is the opening paragraph from Hedrick’s Pears of New York: At one time Flemish Beauty was a leading commercial variety in the pear regions of eastern America, but it has been supplanted by other varieties because the toll of blighted trees is too great, and the fruits are too often disfigured by the scab fungus. Perhaps the latter is the greater fault as in some seasons no applications of spray give the pears a clean cheek, and they are blackened, scabbed, cracked and malformed with this fungus. Not infrequently the scab-infected foliage drops before the crop matures. To offset these defects, the trees have to their credit great vigor, unusual fruitfulness and as great hardihood to cold as those of any other variety. The trees do not come in bearing early, and are not suitable for dwarfing as they overgrow the quince stock. The fruits are nearly perfect if scab-free and properly matured. To make sure of perfect maturity, the pears must be picked as soon as they attain full size and be permitted to ripen under cover. So treated, a bright-cheeked Flemish Beauty is as handsome as any pear, and is almost unapproachable in quality; the flavor is nicely balanced between sweetness and sourness, very rich, and has a pleasing muskiness. Blight and scab condemn tree and fruit for commercial orchards, but a lover of good pears should combat these troubles for the sake of the choice fruits.

So, I hope the fruit qualtiy lives up to Hedrick’s praise. It has had no fireblight this year unlike two trees planted in the same hole. Leopardo Morettini has been cut to the ground and Chapin down to 18 inches.

[mayhaw9999]

The other variety I started picking on July 24 was Beierschmitt. I have posted about this variety before, but since it is a favorite of mine, I’ll do it again.
Most of the pears were ready to be picked on one tree. I have two grafts in another tree that I will start picking later today or tomorrow.
I have had no fire blight on these, but a fellow grower (much better than me!) has had a severe strike and may lose his tree. Remember, fire blight resistance does not mean immunity. And Beierschmitt is thought to only have tolerance, though I have grown it for many years both here and in the southeast US without a strike. For those who have not read, or have forgotten my previous notes, here is an update:

Originated in Fairbanks,Iowa, by J.A. Beierschmidt. Introduced in 1927. Considered to be a seedling of Bartlett; skin thin and tender, greenish-yellow to clear pale yellow when ripened, with slight russet; flesh firm, tender, very juicy, highly aromatic, of high quality. – Brooks and Olmo Register of Fruit and Nut Varieties.
Mild, pleasing flavor, rates rather high in dessert quality. Probably too tender of skin to withstand commercial handling. Keeps somewhat longer than Bartlett. Tree fairly vigorous, spreading or willowy in habit, productive, some resistance to fire blight. – H. Hartman, Oregon Ag. Experiment Station, 1957.

Going way back, some of you may remember Robert Kurle from NAFEX. This was his favorite pear.

[Robert]

Have a question for you David. Which variety would you say taste the most like Comice to you, but with some “FB resistance”?

Still have FB spreading here. Several rounds of cutting it out and still can’t stop it. 14 trees infected, 2 lost. Hope your doing better.

[mayhaw9999]

I think Warren, Magness, and Jana’s Pear are Comice-like. They will save for up to 3 months in proper storage if picked early enough. Actually, last year, I stored some late-picked Jana’s Pears; they lasted until January, stored in my refrigerator at about 35 or 36 degrees.

Our major problem with the large number of varieties that ripen late summer and early fall is that we like those three so well we don’t utilize the others before they go off!

I have more strikes this week. I may lose my last remaining Gorham tree.
That is an excellent pear - always ranks highly at my tasting events. The 20+ year old Comice has two more large strikes. The young Comice Spur is not going to survive.

[Robert]

Thanks. I just grafted Warren this year and have been waiting forever for Magness to fruit. Do either of those need chilling to ripen?

Pretty close to losing my oldest Comice as well. I’ve got more back up Comice trees though. Seckel had another huge outbreak. More strikes on Harrow Sweet and fresh strikes on Honey Sweet. Red Bartlett is the other lost one, but I’ve got back ups of that as well.

[Fusion_power]

Warren tastes near perfect if picked ripe from the tree then left on the counter 3 or 4 days

Beierschmitt is Bartlett X Beurre Clairgeau from the USDA DNA tests. The genetics do not suggest much fireblight resistance. I suspect there are several different traits involved in fireblight resistance. Sometimes one parent has part and the other parent has another part which results in good tolerance.

I just checked and have a grafted Gorham growing in a container beside my house. It is from scions you sent earlier this year Mayhaw.

[mayhaw9999]

Beierschmitt has never blighted for me and I have grown it for many years here and in MS where fireblight is very serious. That said, my good friend and excellent grower is going to lose his tree this year.
David

[mayhaw9999]

Robert,
They do very well without any refrigeration. I picked an entire box of Magness and the person who was going to pick them up never showed. I ate and dried all of them - excellent. But, they are better with a little chill before ripening on the counter.

[Joao]

Good to know on Tyson, I’ve been on the fence about adding it. Small size is a real trade-off but if it holds its own on flavour against Harrow Delight that’s saying something. The fire blight resistance is a big draw, lost a Clapp’s Favourite to it a few years back so I’m more cautious now about what goes in.

[pine]

Warren and Magness are FB resistant but need another variety to pollinate them, right? Is there a similarly FB-resistant pollinator variety they could be paired with?

[mayhaw9999]

The Tyson matured later than Harrow Delight for me (two weeks later this year). Though Hedrick says the same season as Clapp’s, it is also later than my Starkrimson aka Red Clapp’s Favorite. My young Clapp’s has not bloomed yet. Maybe a good thing because of the bad fire blight year we are having.
We are eating Tyson now - July 30. I had to dry my Harrow Delight fruit on July 10 because they were all getting too ripe. Just remember to graft it to a precocious rootstock or topwork it to a mature tree. Otherwise it may take 10 years to bear!

[Fusion_power]

I have Tyson on callery. It will be 10 years.

[mayhaw9999]

For a Warren and Magness pollinator, from my neighbor’s experience, I can vouch for Seckel as a pollinator for Warren. But as we know, Seckel is not very resistant to blight, though it has been used in breeding as the genetic source of blight resistance. My Magness has become quite fruitful for the past 5 years or so as younger pears on its windward side have matured.
In my bloom sequence pictures, Harrow Delight, Potomac and Gem are blooming at the same time, and Harrow Sweet is just beginning. It should overlap the late Magness/Warren bloom.
Again, I will say: Remember, fire blight resistance does not mean immunity!

[mayhaw9999]

Tyson was grafted onto my mature Honeysweet pear tree on 3/22/2014. It fruited in 3 or 4 years. I also grew Tyson in MS for 15 years prior to moving to California. It never had fire blight. It also never bloomed!! I picked the Tyson graft clean today.

[Fusion_power]

Just curiosity, but have you seen any bloom mutants in your pear varieties Mayhaw? I purchased a Cabot Vermont tree 2 years ago which is expected to have fully double blooms. Meantime, I have a grafted unknown variety that made multiple triple petal blooms this spring. The tree originated from a seriously fireblight affected tree someone asked me to help recover. It was thought to be Winter Nelis, however, I have not seen anything suggesting Winter Nelis produces variant blooms. As a bit of fun, I grafted Cabot Vermont on one small limb of the unknown variety on the possibility of producing a double mutant by crossing the two.

[mayhaw9999]

I finished picking Beierschmitt on 7/29 and Tyson on 7/30 and picked two others. Here is a photo of the last Tyson harvest.

Gem was picked on 7/29. It was released by the USDA and several cooperating research programs in 2014 as a fire blight resistant selection. The tree was purchased and planted in 2017 and has grown quite slowly for me on OHxF 87 rootstock. This is my best crop to date.
Gem is quite papatable when first harvested and still crisp. With three to six weeks refrigeration, it will soften after a few days at room temperature. It is advertised to store for up to five months, I have not confirmed that.

And I was surprised when Beurre Hardy Royal Red fell into my hand when I was working on the tree it is grafted on. The other couple of pears on this graft and another graft also released easily. They will go into the refer for a few weeks. Both were grafted onto mature trees on March 23, 2024.
I was a little disappointed at the coloration. Maybe it changes to a more vivid red as it ripens. California pear starts as a drab purplish red and turns crimson when ripe.
Royal Red (Red Hardy) (PI 541363).-Originated in Milpitas, California, by Victor A. Silvera. Introduced in 1940. Plant patent 380; 23 April 1940. Bud mutation of Beurre Hardy; discovered in 1934. Fruit: identical to parent, except for red skin.