I just can’t find any nursery selling the scion. I’d say the home growers interest is minimal as I’d say more people in this forum live in higher chill areas.
I can’t really afford space wise to buy a whole tree for every variety I’m interested in trying out.
If I can decide and find the 3 varieties I can graft one on my rootstock and park the wood of the other two onto my new Hood coming in 2024 or try grafting to an Asian pear. As long as it lives until next spring I can harvest and graft over.
Or if this next year gets good growth on the first graft I can try chip grafting of the second variety in the same year.
With a few exceptions, most of the information you get from nurseries about fruit in the South is a bunch of crap. If you think information is bad with pears, try plums. It’s better to talk to people who have experience growing in similar climates.
Got me a Goldenboy from JFE on the glowing recommendations in this thread. Thanks for all of the info everyone. You all seem to say it’s mostly self fertile, but should I put a graft onto it to help much?
Good luck with it. My long term experience is a little more mixed than my early experience. It’s not as fireblight resistant as I initially thought. It will want to get big. I recommend keeping it pruned back small enough so that you can easily control fireblight with a pare of clippers. When it hit my tree, the tree was so big that it had gotten completely out of control before I made the decision to cut it back by about 2/3rds so that I could reach all parts of the tree with loppers. It required a chain saw. Thanks.
Well, we may have some reliable data to add for Ayers. It has bloomed fine here in West Central Georgia, recently reclassified to 8A. 650-850 chill hours most years.
Unless I have a mislabeled couple trees, Ayers is so early and has a very thin fruit set
but really big pretty fruits of the blooms that do set fruits.
I would keep growing the proven varieties for my area like Orient, Improved Kieffer, and Ayers. Although Dripping Honey and Korean Giant are a little more demanding I do and will continue growing these. These two Asian pear varieties are so good that they are worth a little more effort.
I had this thread bookmarked to read again this winter. I found 3 or 4 varieties I want to trial and added them to my list. I also added several varieties that I deleted after reading more about them. Scarlet for example looked great for the first few years Coolmantoole had it, but was killed outright by fireblight after a few years.
In growing fruit, one of the things that has been a learning process fo rme has been identifying when the optimal time is to harvest my fruit. There are different rules for different fruit.
Every year, I learn something new or accomplish something different, and this year, I am most excited about my pear harvest.
In Texas, and the South in general, our pears and apples can be vulnerable to fire blight. Consequently, I do not grow European pears which are particularly vulnerable to fire blight. I currently am growing fireblight resistant hybrid varieties such as Orient, Warren, Monterrey, Moonglow, Pineapple, Kieffer, Seckle, and Magness.
When determining ripeness and harvesting pears, the books and experts suggest that you look at the color of the lenticels, the small pores in the skin, to turn from white to brown. They also suggest that you feel for a little give in the skin. When both of these occur, the pear should be mature and will ripen off the tree.
Frankly, I think determining ripeness from skin or lenticel color on a pear is pretty tough, and I don’t think I am experienced enough to easily use that method.
Personally,I think one of the best indicators for me in determining ripeness is by lifting a fruit up toward the sky from the bottom in an arcing fashion (with the stem being the pivot point) to see how much give there is with the stem. If it can come off easily from the stem, it should be ripe. When harvesting, you should be able to lift the fruit upward and off – don’t twist or pull. If it doesn’t come off easily from the stem, you should wait.
I kept an eye for fruit on the ground to determine when I needed to start watching the fruit more closely. Our squirrels are very aggressive, however, so the mere fact that a pear is on the ground does not necessarily mean the fruit is ripe in my garden.
Don’t expect the fruit to be soft. European pears are best ripened off the tree, so they don’t become mealy. They ripen from the core, out. (In contrast, asian pears are ripened on the tree.)
Once harvested, I immediately chilled the fruit in my refrigerator. After 2 weeks, I would select fruit as needed and leave it on the counter for 2 or 3 days for it to soften and get juicy. It was perfect!
While keeping the pears in the refrigerator, I have been able to consume the harvest for a period of approximately six weeks. After the pears were in the fridge for four weeks, I could eat them really almost immediately or after only a day on the counter. After six weeks, I am getting near the end of my harvest. I am not sure how long these fruit will remain edible, but I suspect another 2 to 4 weeks.
This is really my first year to produce any Orient pears . I only have one tree that is mature and it is an orient, but I have several that will be reaching maturity, different varieties next year . Really disappointed from what I’ve read and from what I produced so far about fresh eating qualities . Although this year, crop was pretty much destroyed by raccoons, knocking them off the tree. Are you able to eat your pears after a couple of weeks in the fridge? Thanks
I would look hard at this post as i agree with this nurseries findings
I already mentioned this link above as excellent
Kansas isn’t Texas but as many know our fireblight is no joke in this area. We have a new strain so i highly recommend you pay close attention to what your growing.
Dixie Delight pear. Wow these things are awesome. Very sweet, juicy, crunchy, really nice flavor. Very little fireblight. I highly recommend this one for my area which is the lower peidmont in AL.
