I was looking through my email the other day for a perry pear scion source for a friend with an orchard nearby and realized I had not shared the perry tree or scion info with anyone else. Carla with the NW Cider association sent me this email over a year ago. I’m not sure if Joe Beringer is selling perry trees currently though I imagine like with anyone you put in a call @ 425-508-0557 and wait until he has them. I have a phone only contact as shown in the email below. As you know from my other post that Carla’s organization has cider apple scion wood for only $2 per stick http://www.nwcider.com/scion-wood-for-sale/. It’s very high quality wood that I’ve used before.
From: Carla Craig Carla@agbizcenter.org
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Subject: perry trees for sale
To:
Hello,
Beringer Nursery in Skagit County, WA has perry pear trees available. They have 75 of each of the following varieties:
Henred Huffcap
Yellow Huffcap
Romanian Perry
They are all grafted onto Quince C with a Comice interstem, so these will be dwarf pear trees.
$9/tree.
Contact Joe Beringer at 425-508-0557 to place an order.
I have been adding perry varieties to our orchard the past three years, I started with pyrus u crosses from St. Lawrence nursery - John, Olia, Jubilee, and then grafted a few euro varieites, Yellow and Hendre Huffcap, Norman is hen Ciderbiern, Butt. Barnet, aND a few others. Looking for Thorn. USDA pyrus collection is on quarantine due to a bacterial infection, unsure that they will distribute scions this season.
@Appleseed70,
Glad you like the videos. Pear and apple farming have got to be some of the most productive and fun things to do. There is something about making cider, wine etc that makes me feel like I got something important accomplished. Honestly through the years I’ve made hundreds of gallons of wine and even some hard cider but no perry yet. Not just any pear will work for perry though there are some who try to make perry with cooking or eating pears. For that reason like you it’s on my list. How did that little sweet seedling apple finish up for you this year? Now that’s a great tasting apple! Did you get a lot of growth? @JesseS,
Thats a great collection! Lets hope the usda sends out scion wood this year. We are all counting on them for varieties we can’t find anywhere else. I want to test this area for the feasibility of a pear orchard in Kansas. No pear orchards currently exist here.
The seedling grew real nice clark. You actually sent me 2, and maybe even 3 types. The one in your avatar, then another marked “green full” and I think another also. I grafted them all and all grew very well.
That’s a busy time so I don’t remember sending them to you but remembered you said you wanted them and got them. Grafting like crazy that time of the year and planting rootstocks. A friend that lives close by has an orchard and we were digging about 150 trees yesterday. Mostly wild rootstocks I will graft over in the spring. It all hits at once in Feb and March.
I used OHxF 97 rootstock. Most all of my 2 acre home orchard is on either seedling or near full vigor clonal roots, on the theory that I need that vigor and hardiness in my zone(5a), and growing style. Should ensure pears for my heirs, and hopefully a few before before then😀.
I got to try a perry by Farnum Hill at Poverty Lane Orchard a few years back, and found it to be enjoyable enough to seek scionwood and plant out the resulting young trees this past spring. Still seeking out other varieties to trial, especially the precocious ones! I’m also interested in dual-use varieties, Fedco Trees has a few this year that sound quite intriguing, like Ginnybrook, a huge unknown pear, and Mclaughlin, a winter keeper, both of which are good fresh eating as well as for juicing and fermenting. I have come to realize that the bulk of a blend for fermentation can be composed of fairly innocuous juice which satisfies basic requirements in sugar content, aroma, while doing no harm (excessive acidity) and that those high-tannin ‘spitters’ can be only 10-30% of the total, yielding a finished product that is nicely balanced. Funny enough, perry is traditionally made as a single varietal, but I imagine I will be blending for quite some time with my one-off perry pear block!
I called Joe Beringer today. Nice Guy. He will have perry trees available that he bud grafted in the spring of 17’. He seems geared toward large orderers and only ships freight. He referred me to raintree nursery for smaller perry tree orders. I really only wanted to ask him about the interstems he is using and rootstock compatibility. He guessed with the high vigor of perry pears, the interstems would produce a 15’ tree. I am thinking OHxF 333 will be my rootstock of choice for perry pears. Perry on Callery or OHxF 97 will produce huge trees
Seems like perry pears are catching on more all the time. I’m not sure they will ever be as big as hard cider apples such as Kingston black but time will tell.
Perry more reliably makes me “over-regular” so I don’t partake of it too often.
I had missed this comment earlier. The traditional perries of Europe are a blend of many varieties, just like cider. There is very little info on perries made in the past in the US, it must have ben very uncommon.
What are you growing for perry pear trees now? i suspect after a couple of years your collection is extensive. I’m just curious because I would like to hear what you have and how they are doing. I’m not looking to go any further in this direction at this time.
How was your 2019 Perry pears and cider apples? Doing my last press of the season today of golden russet and winesap that have been sitting for 4 weeks.
Perry pears of European origin are not fruiting yet. I did get some Burford, and John (Canadian ussuriensis cross) that seem promising. John is bittersweet, Burford seemed to have mild bittersharp qualities. I did press a batch of Bosc that was the highest juice yielding of any yet, and added some subacid apples to liven up the mild Bosc juice.
Has anyone grown Perry pears successfully in the Mid Atlantic region? I’d like to try some but am concerned about potential disease issues, especially fireblight. The amount of good growing information on Perry pears available online seems very limited.
I think fireblight could be a real problem, I contacted a fellow in Kentucky a couple of years ago who had planted several varieties of Perry pears and as I recall he said that many were killed eventually with fireblight