Yep, that looks like Seckel including the blister mites and rust
Here, with proper thinning, they can reach about half the size of an average sized pear. Most commercial growers just produce small ones in my region because they do have an ability to produce very sweet fruit even when overloaded and the fruit can’t be thinned chemically- at least last I’ve read. .
Wow thats huge they must have 5 pears on the tree. Mine get about 1/4 the size of a normal pear following a year where they are heavy. If there are half dozen pears on a tree they get just a little smaller than ayers but they will never be a 1/2 pound pear here. My pears are in a biennial cycle of production and i like it that way. Way easier than thinning that many pear trees. The trees can be sprayed with sevin to thin them and that kills bees plus doesn’t do anyone else any favors. Thats lots of chemical and lots of money for no reason. I just grow one real seckle and lots of the large seckle. They taste the same and no chemicals are needed. I got my large seckles from Mike at 39thparallel. Then i grafted a row of them. I really like them.
Not half a pound, half the size of a normal sized pear. I used to see their fruit in markets from Oregon of similar size. I’m guessing they may have thinned them for the mainstream commercial market. I doubt distributors would be interested in tiny pears unless they were marketed cleverly. Pew-wee sugar pears!
It gets that every year. This tree is probably closing in on 15 years in the ground.
Is Seckel flesh on the drier side? I didn’t see that mentioned above, but admittedly there are a lot of posts to go through so I might have missed it.
Good question and yes seckle is a richly sweet, melting , succulent pear and not juicy like some other pears. If you want a dripping , juicy, melting pear ayers is a good choice. Seckle isn’t dry nor is it dripping and juicy.
Thanks Clark that’s helpful! I have mystery pear tree that I’ve kept an eye on for the last few years and on another thread you had mentioned maybe it’s a Seckel. After seeing all of your photos here, it sure seems possible. It started out very red and ended up with red blush and kind of a honey background color. It also has a very noticeable honey after taste. But it has a drier flesh so I was curious about that. They’re all pretty small and a variety of shapes. Some are more round and plump and some have a longer almost crook neck. It does seem to get a melting flesh if left on the tree long enough, but it seems to get hit pretty hard by wasps by that point. Wasps seem to attack it much more than any of the pear trees in the areas near it. At least while they’re still on the tree.
This was the pear in May.
And these are the pears I just picked today, September 6.
That looks just like seckle. Part of the flesh will be a slightly different color than white when they turn soft and dead ripe. When you bite into the pear and it is dead ripe the color might be slightly darker on about 15% - 1/4 of the pear. It is a subtle difference in color. The outside will turn from green with a red blush to more yellow with a blush. . Then they will turn mushy and brown quickly once they are soft. They are delicious! That is the real seckle pear and not the many called seckle. The size will be variable but generally small. Seckle grows in clusters not individually like other pears.
Pretty sure this is a Seckel. Planted many years before we lived here. The only puzzle to me is most descriptions of Seckel say that the trees aren’t very big. Also, some of the fruit is in clusters, but not all. That may be due in part to heavy squirrel pressure throughout the summer. Now the bears are getting in on the action too.
Anyway, can a pear expert or two weigh in on my tentative ID?
My dad’s Seckel was at least 35 feet tall before it died of stem decay. I’ve seen at least one other Seckel that was 40+ feet. Growing unusually tall is usually when other trees nearby force it to compete for light.
Makes sense. There are some old cottonwoods nearby that they compete with. Also, the pears are pretty close to our leach field.
Nice. I had 2 trees, one died. The other one must be a good 10yrs old. Not a single fruit. I have grafted other varieties to it.