I’ve seen lots of problems solved on the board.
Obvious ones are getting “x” variety via mail trading, real ARS pruners, and Doc Farwell’s in pints.
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Patent medicine in pints sounds good to me.
kris, the links you posted are just a subset of all the pear accessions in ARS-Grin. The short list is curators choice. The longer list is under 800 items in the pear collection. There are @4000 pears accessions if you query the database.
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umm…i linked @clarkinks post…
I would like maybe 4 or 5 varieties of pears and be done with it…but he makes it so tempting with his many hundreds or more…and the guy is still looking for new varieties.
The best ones maybe in France or Europe…who knows? I cant talk about those though…only US ones.
Cliff England talks about pears from the ‘old world newly introduced into the USA’… so obviously some folks somehow make these things available to us.
I have stuff from the old world too. Will I introduce them into the USA on here? No way. Who would go thru that kind of scrutiny?
You need fireblight tolerance, range of maturity, good eating quality, and maybe one pear for storage.
Warren, Potomac, Clark’s Yellow, Maxine, and Vavilov should be on your short list. If you want a few more to cover the range, Drippin Honey, Harrow Delight, Douglas, and Sunrise are all good possibilities.
p.s. Clark is twisted. His mind is corrupted. He will never be able to satisfy his pear affliction. His motto is “older whisky, younger pears, and more pears!”
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The USDA repository sites are tasked with preservation of crop and livestock diversity. Their budget does not include distribution of material to the public. However, a few sites perform this on a volunteer basis.
Among multiple sites there are many species and hybrids of genus Pyrus L.
Historically (not necessarily all at the same time) there have been 3956 accessions to date, 2346 in subgenus Pyrus and 837 in subgenus Pashia.
Among the subgenus Pyrus there are presently 1428 specimens spread across 25 accepted species names.
For the “European Pear” landrace Pyrus communis L. there are currently 973 specimens.
Likewise for the subgenus Pashia there are 557 specimens among 22 accepted species names.
For the “Asian Pear” landrace Pyrus pyrifolia (Burm. f.) Nakai there are currently 130 specimens.
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If such lists were created, there would need to be separate lists per fruit per region.
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I’m growing Juicy Jewel. Tree’s leafed out and looks to be doing well. Maybe fruit next year if I’m lucky.
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I got a bench graft of Best Ever from wagon wheel nursery in KS. Will be glad to send some scions when it has grown out some.
Also got Paragon which I am interested in trying. It appears head and shoulders above Comice in testing.
“ Setting aside statistical differences, the obscure variety Paragon topped the “overall liking” list. Meanwhile, Bartlett, the most popular pear on American store shelves, came in a close second.
Paragon is a variety from the OSU Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center near Medford, where researchers first bred the Comice-Red Bartlett cross in the mid-20th century. Never patented, it’s rarely grown commercially, proving it takes more than great taste for a new variety to take off.
OSU entomologist and Paragon booster Rick Hilton was not shocked. Like the Bartlett, the Paragon is juicy, sweet and buttery with a skin that’s easy on the palate, checking all the boxes pear buyers usually say they love, he said. Though not involved with the breeding, over the years he and other Paragon supporters have written articles and pitched the pear at trade shows and symposiums — to no avail.
The research station has 29 Paragon trees today, while the largest commercial plot in Oregon is a couple of rows at a Medford orchard owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The pear is a big hit at farmers markets and tops the list at nearly every test, he said.”
“We did pear tastings with Master Gardeners,” he said. “It pretty much always came in as No. 1, hands down.”
Best Ever is a cross of Comice x Louis Pasteur
Paragon is a cross of Comice x Red Bartlett
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They changed the name of paragon to yungen so im making a note of that here for those trying to find it PI 617677 GRIN-Global
It is one of those pears i’ve never been able to fruit. Comice and most comice crosses do not like it here at all. That feeling is not mutual Experience with 'Paragon' pear?
Warren, magness, and several others do ok. Kansas is kind of its own place. We got very lucky and it rained! That will help the pears along this year.
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Double check that ID Clark. I show Paragon is PI 688179. I did some delving. Looks like Paragon made it into the repository under the Paragon name as PI 688179 then later SNP tests showed Paragon and Yungen are the same variety. This is an example of data errata that can persist in plant identification.
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@Fusion_power That is the number in the current catalog. OSU had an agronomist named John Yungen who knew pears. That is likely behind the name change.
NCGR-Corvallis: Pyrus Catalog
This might be of interest later as others are viewing the discussion.
" PARAGON’ AND ‘BESTEVER’, TWO ‘COMICE’ HYBRID PEAR CULTIVARS DEVELOPED IN SOUTHERN OREGON
Authors
R.J. Hilton, D. Sugar
Abstract
A pear breeding program was conducted at Oregon State Universitys Southern Oregon Experiment Station, now part of the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center, from 1911 to the 1980s. A number of crosses were made with Comice as a parent, often with Max Red Bartlett as the other parent. Two named cultivars, Rogue Red (Comice × (Seckel × Farmingdale)) and Cascade (Comice × Max Red Bartlett), both with red peel color, were released in 1969 and 1986, respectively. Two other products of that program, initially designated 633E and 2-301, did not have red color but were selected for their superior eating quality. Local southern Oregon growers are producing these two cultivars in small quantities. Cultivar 633E has been named Paragon and is a cross of Comice × Max Red Bartlett. The skin is green and very palatable. The fruit consistently ranks extremely high in pear tastings conducted at the Research Center. Paragon is Bartlett-shaped, blooms with Bosc, turns yellow with ripening, and matures between Bartlett and Comice. The storage life is approximately four months. Cultivar 2-301 (Comice × Louis Pasteur) is currently marketed under the name BestEver. The shape is round-pyriform and the peel is mottled-russet and does not change color with ripening. Maturity is after Comice and storage life in normal atmosphere is 6-8 months. Paragon and BestEver pears represent the final releases of the pear breeding program conducted by Oregon State University in southern Oregon.
Citation
Hilton, R.J. and Sugar, D. (2015). ‘PARAGON’ AND ‘BESTEVER’, TWO ‘COMICE’ HYBRID PEAR CULTIVARS DEVELOPED IN SOUTHERN OREGON . Acta Hortic. 1094, 149-151
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2015.1094.17
Keywords
Pyrus communis, pear breeding
Language
English
Full texthttps://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2015.1094.17
Acta Horticulturae 1094
XII International Pear Symposium
Article number1094_17
Pages149-151
Groups
Thanks - I also have Paragon’s cousin Cascade (also Comice x Max Red Bartlett); though, Cascade is Red and Paragon is not.
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no it will be a while
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I’m trying to sing those lyrics in the Tom T. Hall song. I think it would go "faster pears, younger pears, older whisky, more pears. Can you hum a few bars for me 
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He might do better with “I like pears, it makes me a jolly good fellow” Either way, I think Clark has been properly described.
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But he’s not British!
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I like the term ‘latest’…as pears ripening in August need cold storage to keep. But a pear ripening in November?