Clark, this Ooharabeni looks like the one I just bought.
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I would really like to learn your rooting methods too!
Is there anywhere I can learn about them?
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Iāve been. Itās impressive for sure. And free!
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I have never had a rooting pear cutting survive. Most of them never rooted at all for me, although the pear scion can fool you, growing vegetation like there are roots, then I go and check and no roots. I forgot that I even had one variety of pear that had successfully rooted, it was only one time, and long ago, and like I said I killed it by accident. This year I had some pieces of pear scion wood that were too small for grafting, I have started a rooting experiment with them. If it works then I will post about it. Once about a year after I started rooting a cutting, all of a sudden it had major vegetation growth, and then that growth died, I checked the cutting to find no sign of there ever being roots, I am not getting my hopes up, unless I have success.
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Good list but in my experience the fireblight resistance of the Asian pears does not jive with what is listed. Iām sure there are possibly other resistant Asian pears but the only one that seems highly resistant here is Shinko.
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Having a tough fireblight spring. Pulled out Tennosui as nearly all new growth infected. Magness about 50% so topworking it. New Shinseiki, Shinsui, Kosui and some Drippin Honey also hit hard. Korean Giant, Maxine, Ayers, and Warren very clean.
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Shinseiki and Raja were the two grafts I lost to fire blight. They were the most blight-prone of over 20+ varieties I have grafted since 2016.
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Same here. 2022 was the worst fire blight year here since 2015. I lost trees of Bosc, Doyenne Gris, Best Ever, Vavilov, Col. Wilder, and Anjou Naumes as well as 7grafts on a top worked Tennosui though it did not blight. It has had blight in the past.
Amazingly, only one Asian pear had blight - Shinseiki. It survived but it is half size now.
I also had extensive blossom blight on Shenandoah and El Dorado but no limbs had to be removed. Comice had some minor strikes as did a young Paragon. Both easy to manage.
We are at the end of the bloom season Last blooming varieties here are Gorham, Rocha, Shenandoah, Paragon and ColdSnap.
There is a good set on the earlier bloomers, but it looks like Warren and Janaās Pear(? Warren) are taking a year off. Magness, however, has a perfect set
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In my experience warren and magness are somewhat biennial. Eldorado has cropped every year for me since it started a couple of years ago and is fireblight free. Gorham blooms very late in my experience as well here. No blossom blast recently.
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Have you ever tried Winter Nelis? Supposed to be super late ripening and one Iāve been after for years. Iām building a frankentree of super old classics and trying to get what I believe to be the best four varieties. I want to go with Winter Nelis, FDML, Abbe Fetel, and one more. Any suggestions.
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I have a young Winter Nelis. It has not fruited yet. I donāt usually share scionwood until I have seen true-to-type fruit from a tree, but if you want a stick, message me next winter.
My wifeās grandparents home has an old pear tree in bad condition. When they passed away, she went through her grandfatherās papers and found where he purchased the tree about 45 years ago. It is the only pear tree on their property and is the only tree she remembers from growing up. Pears on the tree are consistent with Winter Nelis though it bears very few. I collected scionwood 2 years ago and grafted a replacement tree to plant at her grandfatherās house (now lived in by her uncle and aunt) and another tree that I set out here in southern Tennessee.
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I appreciate that. May take you up on that and the walnuts. Had to pass on your offer this year after looking at my rootstock. Just looked to thin to graft. Will need some advice on that in another thread.
Setting disease and ripening aside, I believe all the old time pear varieties are still the best.
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I have grown Winter Nellis both here in northern CA and in northern MS. It can be a good pear but I had so much scab damage on the fruit and fire blight on the tree here in CA that I took it out. Here is what Hedrick wrote in Pears of New York:
āIn the orchard, the trees are among the unmanageables. They are small or of but medium size, with straggling, wayward tops with habits of growth so self assertive that no art nor skill of the pruner can bring the branches under control. The limbs are always crooked; some bend inward toward the main stem, some are upright, some droop, and no two behave in quite the same way.ā
I found it to behave like that on my two trees. You may want to reconsider it as a variety on a multigrafted tree.
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I grafted Winter Nellis to '97, '87 and Quince in 2018. The only one remaining is the tree on Quince, so I have a weak tree on a dwarfing root stock. I need to graft it over to another root stock. I donāt expect that Iāll be able to get the fruit to ripen in my climate though.
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@clarkinks I am curious on how to determine a hybrid pear is a Asian pear or European pear? Say a pear that is hybrid of Asian pear and European pear like Ooharabeni. It is marketed as Asian pear. But from my observations in the pears I grow , its bloom order is more like European pear. Asian pear blooms from bottom to top(side to the center). In another word, for Asian pear the earliest flower starts at lower part of a flower cluster. whereas, the European pear blooms from top(the center) to the side.
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Most of those āAsianā pears youāre heading trouble with are European Asian crossesā¦ so Iām still thinking most Asians are very resistant.
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