Yes my small yellow pear is hard to pick and doesnt keep long but the flavor is exceptional.
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Pears, delightfully in your case, will create their own following. We will serve them as we are enchanted by the glimpses of heaven that synesthetically invades our senses and emotions…
Id like to put it between mishirazu and Atago and plant its seeds
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Could Seckel be grown spray-free?
I grafted Seckel onto an aronia-franken-pear in my back yard, and I have a stick left in my fridge. I was was considering grafting the last scion onto a callery-to-pear tree at my parents’ house that currently has Harrow Sweet and Harrow Delight grafted onto it, which were chosen for their disease-resistance. The issue is that my parents live on a protected wildlife habitat (it’s an estuary/bay with a wild bird preserve island/marsh directly across), so they cannot use any garden chemicals in their yard.
In terms of location, the tree at my parents’ house is in full sun, with no other pear trees or vegetation nearby. It has lots of airflow from the southerly sea-breeze that comes through every afternoon. That being said, I only just grafted the pears on in Spring 2022, so I do not yet know what kind of diseases there might be.
Here’s some pictures, for reference, in case the location might factor into the spray-free-ability.
Easter 2023, on a rainy/cloudy day:
And when it was first grafted around Easter 2022:
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Yes seckle can in most cases be grown spray free. Like with any organic fruit you could get bad insects some years.
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Thanks so much @clarkinks ! Your advice has been invaluable in my pear growing journey 
Can I ask a follow up question?
I also have one stick left of Shenandoah pear in my fridge, and some Harvest Queen and Shipova that I had grafted last year on my franken-aronia that are leafed out and growing nicely right now.
Do you think I could or should try to graft any of my currently-available varieties (Seckel, Shenendoah, Harvest Queen, and/or Shipova) onto the spray-free-callery? Could any of the other “new” varieties be grown spray-free? Is it worth having the extra varieties at my parents’ house (i.e., do they have any unique flavors, or increased ripening times)? Or are the Harrows that I currently have on that tree good enough and I should just leave it alone?
I guess my concern is that I don’t want to add or create any disease pressure (or other issues) for the existing Harrows if the new varieties aren’t “worth it.” I think Seckel is probably “worth it,” because everyone raves about the taste, but I wasn’t sure about the others.
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Seckle is very small. They are tasty little fruits. If i was looking at buying the trees on your list i would buy both the harrows you selected and Shenendoah. They produce quickly. Seckle and harvest queen are good but may have a 5-8 year wait before they fruit. Shipova is an interspecific hybrid which is good but very susceptible to disease. Harrow sweet and harrow delight on callery will likely produce in 1-3 years. Shenendoah is larger than bartlett but the flavor is slightly off at time of picking. It is not perfect when it comes to disease which you should consider. As it sits the flavor becomes more bartlett like. Harrow sweet fruit is excellent and bartlett like. Harrow delight is very good and bartlett like. Harrows have excellent disease resistance the others are not in the same class of easy to grow pears. 25 Harrow pear varieties
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Thanks again @clarkinks ! I’m planning to visit my parents next week, so I’ll try to graft the Seckel and Shenandoah onto their tree then. Even if the Seckel takes longer to bear, I just want to see what it tastes like, and I figured it would bear faster on the full-sun callery at my parents’ house than the part-shade aronia in my back yard.
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Harrow pears are early bearing, delicious tasting, and incredibly easy to grow. The others dont really compare in that respect. The 2 others are good pears as well.
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Years ago I lost Seckel to fire blight here in Maryland. To this day it’s the only pear I’ve lost to blight.
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The fruit looks like seckle. It is not a true seckle if it is not growing in clusters. It can be a type of seckle even if it does not grow in cluseters like seckle. How big do the fruits get? This is what fruit looks like on seckle. It grows in clusters always.
It could be several types
Or
In that photo you took it looks like ayers
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Oh my!
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My “seckle” fruit are small, not too much bigger than golf ball sized (I didn’t thin). I have to check for clusters. My fruit definitely has a lot of white dots and red blush. I don’t think I’ve seen one without blush. Looking at your pictures, it could also be Ayers. I’ve never seen fireblight on my tree and both Seckle and Ayers are said to be firelight resistant. Both Seckle and Ayers are said to have small fruit. They seem to share similarities in many traits.
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Photos and morphology of cultivars can tell us what something is not, and very rarely what something is. For the latter you need a specific kind of genomics.
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Maybe in the future they will sell kits on amazon for each cultivar. You dip the test strip in fruit mash you want to test and it turns blue if it matches dna.
Until then, I’m not sure what better option exists for common folk, except to cross reference observable morphology against what is hoped to be a known example or standard.
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There are currently 1000’s of pear cultivars in worldwide circulation and likewise apples, figs, and so on. What you are suggesting is impractical.
You can stop pretending to know what it is and instead be satisfied to know what it is not.
Even then do you trust Amazon to have the right DNA? Amazon is not one for quality control. I know a few reputable sellers sell plants on there but those sellers will send more per their website. Refining Fire Chiles sells on both but will include extra seeds with ordering from his website for example. Most selling plants on Amazon are scams though.
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There seems to be thousands of apples (over 7000 with the USA being home to over 2000 I believe) but pears seem to be lower in cultivars than apples. I also don’t see new releases of pears like apples. Many pears being sold are very old varieties. I can’t say why.
Just speculating what an example of what future technology could shape up to be. It doesn’t have to be sold on Amazon though I share your skepticism of many Amazon products.
Not sure if I get what you mean.