As bad as fireblight has been in Kansas i may have to grow strictly southern pears! How is everyone else doing with southern pears?
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Well, Iām in 8A Georgia and selected several of my pears based on your lists. My pears are only on their third leaf, but so far, I have had zero fireblight issues (fingers crossed). I mean zero ā not even a single strike, despite the fact that several have blossomed. (This is interesting, because I had to take out two nearby apple trees that got absolutely devastated by fireblight, so I know itās out there in the orchard, biding its time.)
Most of my pears are on callery, but I have a couple on OHxF-87. I have Warren, Ayers, Potomac, Korean Giant, Shinko, Daisui Li and Shin Li. (Some of these, I have multiples of.)
I am annoyed that I got OHxF-87 (I asked for callery) on some of them because I want long-lived trees, and it is getting harder to find pears grafted on callery. I want to switch to BET, but I am concerned about its relative fireblight susceptibility to callery. It would be hard to find a better environment for fireblight here, given our lengthy, wet, room-temperature springs. Do any nurseries sell pear trees already grafted to BET?
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Some nurseries occasionally sell grafts on BET. It is susceptible to fireblight. Callery has many good things about it. Ohxf87 or ohxf97 are not supposed to be terribly short lived. They are not the perfect rootstock for me in most cases but i have some of both. Callery is hard to beat in the south or in locations like mine! Bet and callery work well when grafted over to a disease resistant pear. Have read about the hawkins pear from Georgia it might do very well for you Hawkins Pear ā Bass Pecan
https://basspecan.com/collections/pear-trees
Some nurseries still use callery
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In 7b central Georgia, Ayers suffered terribly from blossom blast (or fireblight, i canāt tell for sure) and then some definite fireblight shoot strikes. Iām sure a late freeze during peak bloom didnāt help the blossoms, but Iāve never seen anything like it. Golden Boy only a couple of strikes but one of them ran down to a main scaffold before I could remove it. Harrow sweet, a very young tree, had a strike on the main leader. Warren and Magness, neither of which bloomed, were untouched.
A tough year overall for pears. Meanwhile, the usually susceptible apples have had few problems, but they received three streptomycin sprays while the pears got nothing, since the fruit was frozen out and Iāve previously had few fireblight problems on pears.
All of my pears but Ayers are on callery that pop up uninvited in my orchard, and Ayers is an unknown that Iād bet is callery. Pears grated to it have produced very quickly and the trees have grown vigorously. I canāt imagine anything using anything else as itās only downside seems to be it produces large trees, though of course Iād never let a callery flower as because of their invasiveness.
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They have declared war on callery in my area of Kansas because of what other states say. Callery has been a very good rootstock for most of us for a number of years. Wish they declared war on some true invasives like elm trees.
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An orchardist friend in Colorado gave me a tip that can sometimes prevent losing an entire tree to blight. He removes all twigs (not scaffolds) growing from the trunk., up to a certain height so his trees have a āclean trunkā. This prevents a blossom on the trunk getting infected and bam, down the leader and its gone.
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Good advice in my opinion. Clean trunk.
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Savannah Pear
Its been a long time since Iāve posted on this thread. Iāve had so much fireblight the last couple of years, I donāt know that I can recommend any of my varieties really.
Anyway, pear season is well underway for me, and I do have some pears. A new one producing for me for the first time this year is the Savannah Pear. This was given to me by someone from this group claiming that it originated in the yard of an old mansion in Downtown Savannah, GA. I have been able to find absolutely zero information about the strain. Iāve lost contact with the person I got the scion from, and donāt know of anyone else who has this variety. It straddles bloom time with Tennousui and Korean Giant, so it is a very, very late blooming pear for a European type.
There were only two pears this year in a branch grafted into my Korean Giant tree. I do have a stand alone Savannah pear that hasnāt bloomed yet. I tried to bend the branch down to get a photo of one of the Savannah pears, and this one fell out of the tree while I was trying to bend it. Well, that usually means its ready to be picked.
Here are my thoughts based on one pear.
Itās russet, kind of like a bosc pear. Its very sweet and flavorful. The flesh is not juicy or particularly crunchy but not soft either when just picked. I donāt like the texture at all with the pear just off the tree. The good thing is that the texture is not at all grainy, so I think it will make a soft pear eventually. It very much reminds me of storage pears which must be cured in cold storage before they are ready to eat. If this variety ever softens, it will be very, very good, and if it is a storage pear it will add something important which we donāt yet have available for Deep South growers.
I plan to pick the other pear late this afternoon, put it in a paper bag and sit it near the air-conditioner and see how long it takes for it to soften if it ever does. I for one donāt have a good set-up for storing a bunch of pears. But if this turns out to be a storage type, I will keep the tree for the sake of selling scion because there isnāt another good storage pear for this far the Deep South other than Asian types that I know of.
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Another southern pear without a trace of fireblight here is leona. How is your doing? Hopefully i get a good tasting this year its loaded last time i looked. Wind storms have been bad this year for my pears.
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It, Baldwin and Acres Home are the three that havenāt gotten any fireblight. To be honest I can tell any difference between it and Baldwin. In fact I have a branch grafted into my Baldwin tree, and were it not for the graft scar, would never know which branch is Leona. Thanks.
Marcus Toole
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That is very interesting. Leona takes a long time to produce fruit , 5-6 years. Looking forward to learning more about your new pears soon. Is Dr. Natelson still getting around and could you ask him about the Savannah Pear? Would like to send you frost if you got space for a graft next spring to trial. Have a few others you could trial.
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The best new one so far is Southern King. It and Tennosoui came about as a cross between Tennessee and Hosoui. Tennosoui tastes and looks just like Hosoui. Iāve had issues with fireblight this year but thatās because it was in full bloom with Scarlett which turned black over night while both trees were in full bloom. There are lots of strikes which I need to deal with, but the tree has contained them. The treeās too big for me to get them off without a major pruning and me knocking all the pears off. Iāve also been trying to make up my mind on whether to keep the tree or replace it with another plum tree. Plums are a heck of a lot easier to sell than plums. Anyway, given the situation, I think Tennosoui is fairly fireblight resistance, at least more resistant than Hosoui. However, its an early ripening pear and it doesnāt seem to store like some Asian types.
Southern King very much takes on some characteristics of the supposed sugar pear ancestry of Tennessee. They are little pears kind of like a seckel. Yellow with a red blush and pear shaped. The tree only got one strike this year, but it got pretty big. But that seems to be it.
Another relatively new one for me is Acres Home. Itās very, very similar to Southern Bartlett, but its much better in my opinion. Like Southern Bartlett it wants to over crop and quality goes to hell in a hand basket when it does. However, the pears are bigger and sweeter if they donāt over crop. The skins a little tougher than Southern Bartlett. It blooms with the other early bloomers. I havenāt seen any fireblight in it. Southern Bartlett will have a twig turn black here are there, but its never more than a twig even if you ignore it.
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Do you grow fan-stil pears?
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No but I was recently in an online online NEFEX meeting where it was pointed out that genetic research indicates that Fan Still is actually a misnamed LeConte. When I asked if it was the real LeConte or the low quality one mentioned in Pears of New York, he didnāt know.
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I take it Golden Boy, Ayers, and Scarlett have been hit bad by fireblight for you then?
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For those growing Baldwin, any comments on FB?
Itās a variety mentioned by my state Ag department.
Thanks
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Extremely resistant for me so far. But it is not resistant to leaf spot.
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Scarlet has been killed by it. I donāt have Ayers anymore on account of not getting enough chill hours for it. Goldenboy is hanging in there. I did a major summer pruning to make it easier to keep fire blight cut out.
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Thanks for replying @coolmantoole
Iām zone 9a, so it Ayers didnāt work for you I doubt it will for meā¦ Unless it just takes many years to bear and you hadnāt gotten there yet.
I am getting a Hood tree this spring but Iāve been looking to start a 3 variety espalier as well (on OHxF87). Ideally the most vigorous variety is grafted first. These need to be varieties I can buy scion for (besides the obvious low chill and fireblight resistance).
This was the list I was looking at initially:
Ayers
Potomac
Hood (will have tree to grow and harvest scion)
Warren
Spalding
Orient
Keiffer
Pineapple
Fan-Shil I couldnāt find scion and whether itās truly under patent.
There are others for sure, but ideally I get 3 varieties with different harvest times and flavor / appearance / use profiles.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
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That is a good list indeed. Fan-stil pear is not under patent
https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/accessiondetail?id=1574234
Here is more information than you are likely to find elsewhere Fan-Stil pear new variety or old variety? .It will need 400- 500 chill hours.
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