As i stated above, the entire movement of southern pears started because of peter kieffer. Ai articles are always what they are full of errors but meant to convey a point about the rise of the hybrid pear originating from kieffer in the USA. Sure chill hours are a huge factor and pears out of Mexico like the fan-stil Fan-Stil pear new variety or old variety? are superior in that regard to many of the ones in Texas like ayers in terms of chill hours but certainly not in flavor Texas pears - resistance to fireblight
Many of us have literally grown a thousand pear varities or maybe more, and hundreds of those varieties were poorly documented. People dont truly know a pear until they grow it, and lets face it, most academic pear articles are as bad or worse than the AI articles. There is no way i expect any article or company to know anything more than the article above. Usually, i know more the first year i grow a pear than i could ever glean from the internet. Starks bros still dont know the difference between an ayer and an ayers pears. It is not just AI i read pear errors on this forum all the time because there is nothing out on the internet besides misinformation. If you are not grafting i bet more than.half the pears you own are not even the right variety. Location is everything and for the purpose of this topic pears like Leona will always be the queen of the south if warren is the king. Very different flavors and textures but excellent fruit.