You all know the sayings like pears for your heirs which causes some people to not plant pears. Remember many people lived only until they were in their twenties back then that does not really apply to us anymore. I have grown pears from a stick watched them produce then cut up the firewood after they died of fireblight decades later. I still grow pears from scions of the original trees. Clapps favorite and ayers i have grown for over half my lifetime. Ayers was originally sold to me as a red Bartlett. Many pears are mislabeled and since i had no idea i called it a red bartlett for years after it began to fruit. Pear varieties produce faster now than they once did. Wild callery pear rootstocks are everywhere so pears such as harrow sweet you can graft and enjoy your own pears the following year. All that said back to the original saying pears for your heirs we are those heirs they were referring to when they made that saying up. My guess would be the average American would be lucky to have tasted more than 4 types of pear fruits out of 1000+ types out there. Pears all have unique flavors and textures and our favorite we may not have even tried yet. Get them in the ground, pears are something that belong in every orchard. Fast producing fruit trees like peaches cannot produce any faster than harrow sweet. If you plant a group of pears together the fast producing ones make the wait seem shorter for the delayed fruiting types. A gentleman asked me years ago what pear to plant for his retired father. His father and him were both concerned about his fathers age and the length of time it takes to produce pears. I bring up this story because it’s like a hundred other stories where people fear the wait it takes to pick their first pear. I’m not saying the reputation is not deserved some pears can take decades to produce. Many on this website have already done the research so you know which varities those are that are delayed in fruiting such as Clapps favorite. Most Asian pears, Duchess D’ Angoulme, harow sweet, harrow delight, Farmingdale and many others are very fast producing pears.
My opinion: Don’t mess around with anything but the Harrow pears. The ones that have “HAR” in their names.
They are fairly precocious, reliable bearers, reasonably disease resistant and as attractive as any other pear.
Pears are amazing and can keep in storage for a very long time! I think there is variability on time to fruit even in specific varieties but I don’t really know the key to that. Soil fertility, rootstock, which way the wind blows, whether a black cat walks past the tree while a cardinal flies over in the opposite direction… But, I figure if the current impatient generations can’t wait for a pear to produce, that’s just too bad. They can buy their red delicious at the store and not know the difference.
My pears are confused and think they are the new apricot given the screwy weather that has been making them wake up too early the last few years followed by frozen blooms. Hoping for the best with the 24F forecast Monday night. Have a young clapps red that wants to produce fruit if we could get a good year.
@snowflake
John,
Heard the red is a little faster to fruit. Let us know how you like it. The story I got is it’s a good one just like the regular Clapps favorite.
@clarkinks
Red clapps bloomed last year lightly but froze blooms. It’s in a spot at the border of very fertile soil, and a clay hill. I can’t recall specifically if the hole was more clay or not. I suspect so since the two pears down from it on fertile soil are much bigger.
These freezes are frustrating. It’s sure tempting to start a burn barrel by some of my favorite pears for the next few nights. Of course, unless I can find snow bees to pollinate them, it won’t matter too much 
No in marginal climates like ours you might need a burn barrel every night for a month.
That’s no kidding!
Huge freakin fans!
Sheets , tarps, lights, Sprinkler systems work to if you want to go to that much trouble. Once I grew pumpkins in February. My mother when seeing those pumpkin vines shot her eyebrow up and said something isn’t right here. I said well I planted them in February turned the hose on every morning at 3am for a month before the sun came up. It was a warm year. Lets just say we had canned pumpkin for the next six years literally. Sometimes we can do things but should we? I have learned the early blooming pears like improved kieffer are very resistant to freezes. My plan is to grow later blooming pears and save the sweating. I jokingly call the improved kieffer potato pears because they are the potato of my orchard. You will always have food in your belly with them around. They are not the best pear but there is worse. In the future they will likely have 8 foot tall containers for fruit trees like the milk jugs used to cover tomato plants. A spray of copper gives you several extra degrees of cold tolerance as well. Strange when i was younger I loved the improved kieffer. There are still days when i do and I eat several when I’m in the mood for them. Tastes change as we age and I prefer many pears to those now. Pear blooms as shown in this thread from 2016 can take some serious cold weather. The pictures from 2016 say it all Strange weather - Will it get our blooms and fruit?
That weather didn’t bother my pears as shown here Here comes the 2016 apple and Pear harvest!
On the topic of your heading. I say Get them in the ground now. I used to think quince cut the flowering time, but that is not always the case. I have a 6-7 year old comice on I believe quince just now flowering vs. a red bartlett on quince that flowered from day one.This is going to be a monster year for pears here. Biggest set ever.
I want to do something like this. My grandpas neighbor set one up and it seemed to help a lot more than burning tires like he used too.
It would be cool if these were wind turbines you could turn on during frost risk, here we aren’t even allowed to have residential wind turbine systems anyways though
I can’t even convince my wife to let me get a stack heater.
You gotta break it down to her in the needs and wants categories
I’ve always assumed “pears for your heirs” was more referring to seedling pear trees, while grafted trees should bear sooner. Anyone with experience growing pears from seed know how long it typically takes? I’ll probably stick to grafted pears, but just curious. I see quite a few people experimenting with apple seedlings, but not so many with pears. I’ve heard of ancient seedling pear trees in France and the UK used for making perry, living hundreds of years, 80 feet tall and still producing fruit. Gotta admire that.
I had a ‘Summercrisp’ pear take 7 years to come into bearing. Don’t think it’s a seedling vs. graft issue. Maybe the last couple of years was caused by inclement weather. Who knows?
Point is, you don’t have to accept that kind of delay, anymore than you have to accept a non-self-pollinating peach tree.
Unless growing varieties with apostrophes in their names is a hobby there’s no reason to wait years for fruit.
Where is the list of precocious pears? I have a Summercrisp in the ground and have ordered honey sweet, Magness and Douglas.
I will let you know when my seedling pears produce. I have most limbs grafted to desirable varieties, but left several limbs of the original seedlings. This will be their 7th year.