Yes, I visit that site a lot especially towards the end of winter. It says we have gotten 305 chilling hours here in Statesboro which is way better than last year at this time. I doubt chilling hours will be a problem for any of my fruit trees this year.
About LeConte, so far so good for my LeConte and fire blight. Folks who have grown Golden Boy way longer than I have insist that it appears to be pretty bullet proof when it comes to fire blight. Of course we should never take these things for granted.
I am fairly convinced that there must be at least two quite different strains of pairs out there under the “LeConte” pear. The Pears of New York says of LeConte that its eating quality is inferior to that of Keeffer. In the 1850s LeConte pears from Georgia were bringing high prices in places like New York. My LeConte has delicious pears that are nothing like Keefer pears. They are soft although not as soft as a Bartlett or Southern Bartlett pear. The Pears of New York simply can’t be describing the same pear growing in my yard or the pear described by the LeContes back in the late 19th Century.
Lastly it would not surprise me at all if LeConte turns out to be the parent variety for a lot of the soft pears simply found growing near a farmhouse somewhere in the Deep South. It was one of the very first if not the very first soft pear fire blight resistant enough to take our climate. I imagine that a lot of folks who ate pears from these trees planted the seeds in the hopes of getting a similar pear tree. It would be interesting to run a genetic analysis of the various southern pears with unknown origins to find out who is related to whom. God bless.
Marcus
