Soft when ripe and crisp when ripe hybrid Asian and european pears. which of each are your favorite?

General Fruit Growing
21

Gulf coast from Texas to South Carolina and most of Florida count as low chill. Some areas of the gulf coast are only 200 or so hours in an average year. There are pears rated for low chill areas such as Hood (150 hours) and Biscamp (200 to 250 hours). I am actively looking for a few low chill pears just to verify if they are capable of producing here in the bottom edge of Tennessee with roughly 700 chill hours.

I have most of my pears on Callery rootstock because there are tens of thousands of them growing in this area. Some that I grafted this year are on betulifolia all of which are in containers at present.

2 Likes
22

One is and one is not. @haldog is able to get it to bloom reliably in west central Georgia with 650-850 chill hours while @coolmantoole states that Ayers blooms unreliably in his area which gets between 500-600 chill hours, leading to his estimate that it needs roughly 600 chill hours.

From what I’ve read, the ones stating 300-400 are likely wrong, but I could be wrong too.

A reliable source to me can be defined as one that provides accurate, trustworthy, and unbiased information, supported by evidence and expertise. I consider many nurseries (especially re-sellers) to be biased towards selling product, and therefore unreliable. your opinion of a reliable source could certainly differ from mine.

We are debating it because I thought your answer of 300-400 chill hours seemed very incorrect, so I had to say something, and I found the evidence supporting those chill hours requirements you provided to be lacking.

I knew 300-400 chill hours is literally the answer google AI gives you if you google “how many chill hours for Ayers pear” so I couldn’t in good conscience let that stand alone as a fact in this forum where someone might use it as a point of reference.

If you had offered up chill hours of 500-600 I would have been less inclined to offer a rebuttal.

It sounds like you are defining “southern” as south of the Mason Dixon line, which, if that is the definition of a southern pear for you, then so be it. If this is your definition, I can acquiesce to this statement.

Unfortunately utilizing the generic definition of “south” to determine fruit tree cultivar suitability is reckless and ignores all the different climate factors of the various regions of the American “south”.

@coolmantoole defined southern pears here as “varieties that do well in the Southeastern United States and other hot and humid regions with lots of fire blight pressure and where chilling hours can be deficient" and as I read through southern pears thread, the conclusion I was left with was Ayers is not a southern pear based on that definition.

What is or isn’t a southern pear can certainly be a matter of opinion, and this is just my opinion based on what I have read.

3 Likes
23

We may have to agree to disagree. Every source seems to have different numbers and the two people you relied on are just that two people. If there was a definitive answer the conversation would be over. I grew up in the southeast (GA, TN, and AL) and back then in that part of the country hard pears and Ayers were the most commonly grown. There is only a small sliver around the gulf and Atlantic coast that gets low chill, so 90% of the south(below mason) “should” have no problem growing it. Maybe there are some pockets it doesn’t do well, but for the most part it should be good.

1 Like
24

Information I’ve found on Ayers is that it requires 800 chilling hours, and that’s my experience with it here in Statesboro GA, where I can count on 500 hours. I don’t believe 300 to 400 hours.

2 Likes
25

There is no reason to trust an article about Kiefer pears which shows a photo of something that looks absolutely nothing like a Kiefer pear. It’s just AI generated nonsense. Even the history is nonsense.

3 Likes
26

I get 500 to 600 chilling hours. I can absolutely say that Ayers does not get enough chilling hours to bloom properly to bloom at 600 chilling hours. And when a nursery says gives an chilling hour spread of 300 hours between the low or high number, they are admitting that they know nothing about their product. Most nurseries pull stuff out their rear ends to sell the fruit threes they can buy.

3 Likes
27

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.

3 Likes
28

Thanks for joining in! I really appreciate and value your opinion here. Sorry I kept tagging you, I’m sure that was annoying to get all those pings.

I would love to hear what your favorites are for the soft when ripe and crisp when ripe hybrid pairs.

29

Is Leona a hybrid pear, and if so what is it like?

1 Like
30

@Bigmike1116

I really like Leona

2 Likes
31

Leona is a hybrid.

2 Likes
32

@Fusion_power

Yes it is hybrid like @Fusion_power said. Because of the work i did with Leona we now know it can be grown in areas like mine zone 6 and likely lower. Charles Harris and many others work great here also.

2 Likes