Pear tree pollination

General Fruit Growing
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I have looked for this information online, and seem to get conflicting or incomplete lists of pear pollinators. I know it’ll be a few years before this will be a real issue, but thought I’d ask.

When I bought my Orient and Pineapple pear trees from Plant Me Green last spring, I didn’t know or check to see if they would be able to pollinate each other. From what I’ve read, some say they can, and others say they cannot. Assuming that they didn’t, I picked up another tree, a Moonglow, to kind of hedge my bets.

Does anyone on here know if these are compatible? Plus, will an Asian pear pollinate a Euro, and vice versa?

Thanks.

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Kieffer (original) has been an almost perfect match for my Orient. They started blooming on the same day. If you don’t want to plant more varieties I would suggest that grafting in other varieties would help. I have always assumed that European and Asian pears are compatible as long as you have bloom overlap.

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Thanks, Bill. I emailed Plant Me Green, and they said that the PA and Orient should pollinate each other. But, I read on other sites that they don’t really. Something about one is an early bloomer, and other somewhat late. So, that’s why I got the Moonglow to bridge the gap.

I might have read also that some pears self pollinate, but only in very warm locations, and of course, we’re not in such a place.

I haven’t tried any grafting, and I’m terrified about butchering my new trees. I’ll have to try it eventually, but for now I’m not confident in attempting it.

Maybe they’ll be OK, I’ll try to see when they bloom next year.

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Isn’t the Kieffer pretty gritty? I’m not a fan of gritty pears. How does your Orient and Moonglow taste?

I forgot which of my two PMG trees are which. Can one tell what a variety is by what the leaves or bark looks like? If not, I guess I’ll have to wait until fruit shows up. I know the Orient variety has a rounder shape than the Pineapple.

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Kieffer is very gritty. I only keep it for the pollination, but it blooms before my Seckel does, and Seckel may or may not be self-fertile anyway

I’m waiting til the grafts I put on it finally bloom, then I’ll turn the rest of it over, too.

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yes, an Asian pear can pollinate a European pear and vice versa

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Keiffer is a little gritty as well as Orient. My whole family prefers Orient over most other store varieties but that is just our choice and many prefer a smooth pears. If a little grit is a problem neither of these would be for you. I don’t see but two options for getting cross pollination and one is grafting and the other is more varieties. My preference is to get trees that bloom almost totally together.

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I don’t mind a little grit. We got some Maxine pears at the orchard last week and I liked them alright. Maybe it’s the pears I had as a kid that I didn’t care for, maybe they were Bartlett? Idk.

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