I read that Shenandoah is somewhat similar to Bartlett, but has only medium, not strong, blight resistance.
I am familiar with Old Home X Farming dale. I would want to use whatever works well with the top and is FB resistant. We harvest our peaches from harvest platforms which allow trees to be up to 12ā tall so height is not a huge issue. We would prefer that the tree is not hugely vigorous as long as it produces nice fruit. Summer pears would be preferred. We would likely train to a bi-axis tree pulling the tops toward one another in the row so we can drive by with our platforms.
3 Likes
Itās rather unfortunate but bartlet is about all I see in the stores. Sometime some red bartlets and other āexoticsā. There are so many other varieties with differing flavor/texture profiles. But in all honesty a yellow or turning yellow bartlet is the quentisental pear and delicious to boot.
4 Likes
Summarizing your desired traits, you want flavor on a par with Bartlett or Comice, large fruit, fire blight resistance, moderate vigor, precocious, and highly productive. It reduces the field a LOT
Ayers - not large enough
Bell - probably would work, do a deep dive on this one.
Blakeās Pride - good for storage, not necessarily good as a fresh eating pear
Clarkās Yellow - small, might work, flavor can be erratic, check with Clark
Douglas - canning and storage, not so good fresh
Drippinā Honey - Asian, sugar sweet, can eat fresh or store up to 5 months, look hard at it.
Harrow Delight - only issue is it is a bit small, mid-season, precocious
Harrow Sweet - large size, precocious, would work, but is later ripening
Harvest Queen - only concern is smaller size, earlier than Bartlett, excellent flavor
Highland - better for storage so probably not A list
Keiffer - flavor and texture are meh
Magness - not precocious, otherwise could work, climate variable
Maxine - would work, can overbear, requires thinning, good storage
Potomac - Probably would work, do a deep dive
Seckel - a large Seckel is available, original is too small and tender
Shenandoah - I donāt know how it would perform in your climate, look into it
Spalding - not adapted to your climate
Tyson - Has a lot of potential, dig deeper on this one
Warren - Only concern is it takes 4 to 5 years to bear. Flavor and fireblight tolerance outstanding
Consider growing 3 or 4 varieties to hedge your bets a bit, also to spread out the harvest if it would work with your marketing setup.
7 Likes
Wild and highly invasive P. calleryana aka Bradford pears can easily be topworked to most, if not any Asian or European pear and grow rapidly via this method. Here in KY these invasives are all over at this point. I have topworked a number and the results are always satisfying and grow fast and strong.
I havenāt seen much on Asian pears on this thread, but they work great here in KY and have many advantages. In my experience high quality, FB resistant cultivars are extremely delicious and I still have them in my fridge in great shape from October harvest.
4 Likes
I posted a video to our youtube about how to do this. I was topworking a Turnbull pear to Hamese but the process is exactly the same:
3 Likes
Zone 3b, NW Wis here. I wasnāt sure if I wanted to add Pears to my Apples and Plums, but my research lead me to some varieties that would do better in the colder northern climate. I found St. Lawrence Nursery in NY that specializes in cold weather fruit trees.
My search was for the russian varieties that have done well in North America. Since canada does not ship to the USA (that I am aware of), it has been a tough search. SLN has added a couple of varieties, so they will arrive this Spring: Vekovaya (century) and Krasnobokaya (red side). These promise a long life and cold weather resistance.
I was finally able to find Rootstocks for this Asian variety (Pyrus Ussuriensis) at Burnt Ridge Nursery in WA. I was advised by Bob Purvis to be CAREFUL about which rootstock to use, as the European/American Pears have problems with Asian rootstocks.
Hopefully, I will get some good fruit in the years to comeāboth to eat and for juice.
Great thread here. Learning a bunch.
2 Likes
I live on Front Range- have bought some tasty pears over in GJ and Palisadesā¦ perhaps you will find some local knowledge there (not sure if you are up there or down near Delta/Paonia). Iām a home grower and went with Moonglow and Luscious a few years ago.
4 Likes
Here is post on similar question Question the History of a pear or know some history? Post it here! - #126 by Toadham
As you spend more time on this site, you will find there is a lot of infoā¦ use the search function and keep scrolling/reading 
5 Likes
Can you top work the current orchard to warren? That would put your trees back in production quickly. Warren is more like comice but it is as @Fusion_power mentioned your best bet. Frog hollow has a nice operation Sad pear tree - #19 by clarkinks
2 Likes
The current block is 60 years old and riddled with FB. It is a better location for peach and I have some new, virgin ground for pears. That way I wonāt be out of production.
3 Likes
I am one of the larger commercial growers in the Palisade area. The pear growers are all in the same boat as me (struggling with fire blight in Bartlett).
3 Likes
@TrentC Western Slope peaches: yum! Grew up near Denver, dad spent every August in GJ coordinating railroad cars shipping out the peach crop.
4 Likes
Has anyone else planted fireblight resistant varieties in your area?
What would your method be for planting 10 acres with roughly 2500 trees? Purchase and plant? Purchase rootstock and plant then graft? Asking because it will be difficult to find Warren or Bell in volume unless pre-ordered a year in advance. Grandpasorchard has Bell though quantity available is unknown.
If you went with rootstocks from Willamettenurseries, you could probably pull it off with about $6000 for rootstocks and scions to graft. Labor and materials cost for grafting can be estimated at $3 per tree or $7500 to do all 10 acres presuming 2500 total trees.
An alternative would be to have a propagator like turkeycreektrees source rootstock and graft for you. Only negative is a year to get them ready to plant plus cost will be around $30 each.
3 Likes
Hope you find a good solution, Trent.
3 Likes
I do not know of anyone that has anything other than Bartlett. We will be planting fairly high density (14X8 or so). I would like to buy the trees already grafted. I expect to be planting in 2027. Fowler Nurseries in CA have Harrow Delight and Harrow Sweet and can, hopefully, produce commercial volumes of trees for $13-$14. Just doing my due diligence at this point. This group is a welcome source of information.
3 Likes
This is a good video about the railroad and Colorado peaches on YouTube. I cant paste the link but search on YouTube for Colorado Peaches - The Very Best from Our Orchards to Your Table!
1 Like
TrentC, I see where you are heading now. You need 4000 grafted trees to plant 10 acres. Based on all traits needed, suggest you shortlist these varieties and dig deep to see if they will work for your conditions.
Bell - recent release, outstanding fireblight resistance, check carefully for pollen compatibility and time of maturity. Can be sourced, especially with 2 year lead time.
Drippinā Honey - a possibility if you want a very sweet Asian pear
Harrow Sweet - Meets all described traits, readily available in the trade.
Potomac - One of the best currently available, meets all noted requirements
Shenandoah - Meets all described traits, readily available, check carefully it is adapted to your climate.
Warren - Outstanding flavor and excellent fireblight resistance, large fruit. I have a large Warren tree grafted from scionwood supplied by Lucky Pittman. It is a tip bearer as opposed to a spur bearer. Production is not as heavy which tends to maintain large fruit size.
Based on all we have discussed up to this point, I would place Bell, Harrow Sweet, Potomac, and Warren as your best overall options. All 4 are pollen group 3 though I do not have any way to prove all are pollen compatible. I see that Fowler Nursery has Warren and Harrow Sweet. If you can convince them to graft Bell and Potomac, you will have access to all 4.
4 Likes
Lets build on what @Fusion_power has said.
Iām going to make some recommendations based on my experience. I will let you draw your own conclusions. Im going to give you some facts first. Harrow sweet is a very good bartlett flavored pear , potomac tastes like anjou, warren like comice, drippinā honey is a unique asian pear. For a commercial orchard Dr. Bells pear advice is not 100% applicable. A commercial orchard has very unique challenges. Harrow sweet bears to heavy which tends to make the pears to small. We know chemical thinners can be sprayed to reduce the crop load. It is an extra expense. Harrow sweet will behin to bear in 1 - 3 years. Orchards like mine that have several acres of pears can save you a lot of time and money as i post my research on this website. @39thparallel is a commercial pear grower as well. Growing pears is complicated because very little commercial research is done. @Fusion_power is making good recommendations but there are strings attached to every new fruit you need to be aware of. As an example Shenandoah tastes like battery acid at harvest and needs to remain in your cold storage for a month or two longer to taste as it should. It is a storage pear. That is both good and bad. Drippin Honey is a fantastic Asian pear with good storage. These new strains of fireblight can damage Drippin Honey. 4000 pears need to be grown and grafted for you this year and commercial pricing needs done.
Hopefully previous post and this post as a follow up to @Fusion_power post will bring to light many facts that will help you all in making pear growing decisions. I would review this thread as well.
I grow many dwarfs and many standard pears. When i say i grow hundreds of pear trees i mean that very literally. If you plaanted acres of the wrong pears they are not easy to maintain long term. I would analyze this data carefully.
5 Likes
Thanks. I will attempt to find commercial growers growing the new varieties to verify before ordering any variety. This group is my source of raw, unbiased information. The nurseries will write glowing descriptions in the catalogs that, many times, are too optimistic.
3 Likes