Added this little guy today. Anyone ever espaliered a southern pear? lol Worth a try I guess. This Southern Bartlett was already blooming when I picked it up. Still needs some shaping/bending as it was a bit lopsided. @coolmantoole Do you still enjoy this variety?
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Southern bartlett sounds good!
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Where did you pick it up?
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The Landscape Source in Rockwall.
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Thanks, thatās a new one for me, Iāll stop by
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Iād call before making a trip. I didnāt see any others, but who knows. I think they have multiple locations.
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Winnie and Golden Boy are both blooming for me right now in zone 7b, and both starting to leaf out. Our 30 degree morning day before yesterday didnāt seem to affect them. They are in full sun and we had a cloudless morning, so they werenāt dealing with freeze conditions for very long. However, Iām worried that both will be hit hard later on as we usually have another freeze or two within the next month.
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My experience with Southern Bartlett so far is that itās a very soft productive pear, but the fruit from my tree tends to be kind of bland in my view. It might be on account of my tree not getting enough sun.
Yes, Winnie, Southern Bartlett and Acres Home are very early bloomers. My Winnie and Granny Durden have pretty much bloomed out. Weather.com is forecasting 25F for Friday night. I sure hope they are wrong. Thanks.
Marcus Toole
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Awesome thread! I just got through it after going back and forth between it and a few more. Love all the pics in here!
The cold weather bit my Anjou just a little the other night but it was the only pear that had broken dormancy of the 4 that I have planted. I am going to be grafting several varieties mself this year and have rootstock ordered as well. Hoping that all goes well and I should have several great varieties. I am in Middle Tennessee so I guess that puts my just in range for Southern Pears. I am zone 6b though because of the Cumberland Plateau. Just 15 miles or less from me is Zone 7aā¦
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Unfortunately, if the weather report for 25F Friday night is accurage, I will likely get quite a bit of damage on Winnie, Granny Durden, Southern Bartlett , Baldwin and Acreās Home. Itās iffy with Goldenboy and LeConte since they wonāt quite be in full bloom. Grrrr. Thatās the problem with these low chill southern varieties when you have a warm January. Thankfully most of the plums arenāt quite so low chill and arenāt quite as far along. However, hope springs eternal. Iām still praying that the low will be around 28 rather than 25.
Marcus
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Hopefully the damage is minimal and the weather forecast is off a few degrees!
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Hi, do you have any pear scionwood?
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I do, but I will be self quarantined for COVID19 for the next two weeks. Iāve had some minor symptoms that could be that plague and would not want to risk exposing you or postal workers. I collected the scion in January and havenāt checked lately to see how good it still is. If itās still good when I end self quarantine and the post offices are still running, I will send you some. Please remind me in about two weeks. The best time to contact me about pear scion is late January. Thanks.
Marcus
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Here in 7b, Iāve got four pears: Winnie, Leconte, Golden Boy, and Ayers. Iāve had these trees since Spring 2018. Here is my report so far.
Winnie, Leconte, and Golden Boy are grafted on wild callery seedlings. I grafted them using a cheap zenport knockoff. They have all taken and grown extremely vigorously. Ayers is on unknown rootstock and hasnāt been quite as vigorous, but still very vigorous. I bought it from one of the local big box stores.
Leconte, and to a lesser extent Winnie, are suffering this spring from some leaf spot disease. So far Golden Boy and Ayers are unaffected. Iāve tentatively identified this as fabrea leaf spot. Iām spraying some Mancozeb on them today unless someone suggests a better plan.
The bloom order was Winnie, Leconte, Golden Boy, Ayers. There was some overlap between blooms, but Winnie and Leconte were finished by the time Ayers began. Winie and Leconte set no fruit. This could be because their early blooms were zapped by late freezes or it could be because they are young trees. I strongly suspect it was the late freezes because all of these trees had a second bloom in mid summer last year, and set some fruit, which of course didnāt have time to ripen before fall. This probable susceptibility to late freezes does not make me hopeful for getting fruit off of Winnie and Leconte.
Golden Boy has set some fruit, and as I mentioned above so far no leaf spot. It is looking very promising so far. I believe Ayers is also going to set fruit this year since it also had a second bloom and set fruit in the middle of last summer.
Thank you @coolmantoole for providing me scion wood. I know @auburn and several others are growing pears here in the south. I hope everyone will update this post with how their pears are doing.
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I donāt know how much I can add but I do have several more varieties that are fruiting and some will probably fruit next year. Growing pears is enjoyable to me and since I got a variety of blooming dates I tend to have some success each year. As of now this looks like a very good year. In our area I think the key to getting more fruit is diversifying the varieties with a heavy emphasis on bloom date. Chill hour requirement also comes into play. Iām glad that I added more varieties requiring more hours because they tend to bloom later. Not sure how they will do long term but escaping cold weather by a few days can make a huge difference in fruit set.
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Tentative Southern Pear Report
April 2nd, 2020
Pear Blooming Dates for 2020
variety 1st bloom Full Bloom Last significant flowers
Winnie Jan 18 Jan 29 Feb 24
Granny Durden Jan 17 Feb 05 Feb 24
Baldwin Jan 25 Feb 05 Feb 24
Southern Bartlett Feb 2 Feb 06 March 14 (Blooms a second time every year.)
Leona Jan 25 Feb 05 Feb 24 (Everything about it identical to Baldwin so far.)
LeConte Feb 14 Feb 22 March 16
Golden Boy Feb 14 Feb 22 March 16
Tennessee Feb 15 Feb 22 March 17
Southern King Feb 24 March 17 (too few flowers for a full bloom)
Orient March 02 March 05 March 15
Scarlett March 19 April 01 (Too few flowers for a full bloom)
There was heavy blooming this year. All varieties except Tennessee bloomed a couple of weeks before they should. The early blooming varieties did not set a significant amount of fruit on account of late freezes, too many cold wet days during flower for good pollen tube growth and for pollinators to be active. The mid season bloomers have set fruit crop but itās too early to tell how much of it will eventually drop. So far fruit drop has been super heavy for some reason. All the late bloomers are too young to bloom or bloomed to little to really evaluate fruit set.
Itās going to be another disappointing pear year, but LeConte and Goldenboy and Tennessee are the stars of the show again this year because it looks like they will have at least fair crops again this year while everyone else has largely failed or is too young to really produce. Orient has a good fruit set as well given that itās still a fairly immature tree.
Marcus Toole
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I created a franken pear tree by grafting onto a bradford pear in my yard. On there are 2 yr old grafts of golden boy (thanks @Auburn ), warren, pineapple, southern bartlett, ayers, and tyson. I added harrow sweet and dixie delight last year, and grafted korean giant this year and its taking off big time. So far golden boy flowered a ton this year and set about 2 dozen fruit. Dixie delight set one fruit. S bartlett, ayers, and harrow sweet had a few flowers but no fruit. Heres my observations on bloom/leaf out times. Pineapple and s bartlett are very early and mostly overlap. Dixie delight and golden boy are next and overlap. Followed by Ayers, warren, and harrow sweet that seem to overlap. Tyson is the latest and seems to have no pollination partner. Its just now breaking bud. It may have to go away.
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My Tyson graft 2019 doesnāt have any flowers this year. Blakeās Pride at my place is blooming now and it is my latest which might overlap. I have about five more varieties that havenāt bloomed yet so one or two of these might coincide. Good to see all these reports from nearby growing fruit friends/members.
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Thanks for the update Auburn. I get bad rot on my goldrush apple - basically 100% if i dont ziploc bag them. Do pears rot as bad as apples down here? If so i need to bag my golden boys asap. I have minimal insect pressure other than a few plum curculio that dont cause much trouble on apples/pears.
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I havenāt had a rot issue with the pears that wasnāt bagged. For the last two years I have been trying to bag some with ziplocs and with some with window screen. My Harrow Sweet didnāt do well in ziplocs but the Korean Giant did ok. Iām bagging pears again this year and I hope to determine my best option. The screen allows for better air flow and might work well. My Korean Giant without bags had a lot of stinkbug damage.
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