Richard,
What do they rate your yearly chill hours at? I’m assuming you can grow other very low chill pears like Florida Home and pineapple correct? Hood is the best in that class of pears requiring only 150 chill hours per year.if anyone needs more information on these 3 types of pears in regards to chill hours take a look at this link http://orange.ifas.ufl.edu/res_hort/pdffiles/Factsheets/017%20Pear%20Trees%20for%20Central%20Florida.pdf
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I’ve found Florda Home to be very susceptible to fireblight here. I don’t have experience with Pineapple.
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I have Pineapple growing here, and it is by far the most precocious pear I have growing. It has only set a few fruit so far, it’s only on year 4 for me. But it is twice the size of any other pear planted that year. Zero sign of FB so far. Our CH will vary here in our area. I can get over 600 CH at my place in a good winter, but that’s because I’m at nearly 1,000 ft. elevation, and in an odd little microclimate. Most other areas here are more around 300 CH.
Patty S.
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Patty,
I grafted pineapple this year on an older pear and will update you on how it does here. Kansas will probably work good for growing pineapple pears.
Patty,
Pineapple pears are growing very good here. I grafted a tree that is a multi graft and put 4 varieties on it with pineapple being one of them. The only pear outgrowing pineapple is Richard Peters. Leona is another vigorously growing pear! Many of the others lack the vigor of those southern type pears. Warren is a fast grower on my property which shocks me because magness grows at half that speed. Maxine and Karl’s Favorite I planted last year are close to 5 feet on 2 year old rootstock. Some trees like certain rootstocks and not others such as Fondante de moulins Lille has been slow on callery but grew 1’ in the first year on 333. I would expect Fondante de moulins Lille will be 5-6’ by year 3. As far as bench grafts go 333 normally grows pears much slower than callery. The scions I put on most callery grew to several feet in a year but again right rootstock for the right tree is key. Richard Peters should only be grown on callery or harbin and would be a very poor choice for 333 or 87 rootstock.
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I’ve got a pineapple, it’s the largest of all my pear trees by far and they were all planted at the same time. Still hasn’t given me any fruit and strangely enough it didn’t flower this year. Come to think of it, aside from a couple of out of season blossoms on my leconte not one of my pear trees flowered this year. strange.
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Jeremy,
That’s strange I know it can be a heavy producer sometimes. Maybe it’s the chill hours.
could be, but all of the nurseries down here carry them and they’re supposed to be ok in zone 9.
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Jeremy pineapple pears need 200 chill hours . It was a warm winter so that may still be the problem. I checked because I could not remember if it was 200 or 400.
Exact same experience— Rocky first year, then fruit set and more vigorous growth the second.
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Looked at the chill map, we got exactly 208 hrs, so pretty much right on the nose. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next year.
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Has anyone grown the Harovin Sundown pear? We are trying all the fire blight resistant strains and the remarkable thing about our two trees of this variety is that they have set fruit already in their third leaf.
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Post some pictures if you would get a chance. Would love to see them!
@TurkeyCreekTrees,
These 2 are excellent looking pears as you said they would be! Thank you!
ATA
TS HARDY
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The majority of pears do seem to produce a poor quality pear the first year. Some pears produce something little better than walnut husk the first year which are now some of the best.
Maybe that is what happened to my Flemish Beauty. It is the first year it finally got pears, about 4 or 5, but they were covered with a black sort of mildew and had deep cracks, leathery feel to them before they ever ripened. It was quite a disappointment.
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A similar thing happened to me last year. My Flemish Beauties had the skin of a football. Tough and ugly. It was the first fruit the tree ever produced. I never had soot or mold. This year they are happily sitting in the fridge looking beautiful and slowing getting ripe! Hang in .
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Pears really take a lot of patience and skill to grow properly. Thankfully the trees are typically long lived and rewarding once they are mature.
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There were mentions on Pineapple earlier in this thread. My PA has become my most vigorous tree of all my fruit trees that have been planted since last spring. After about a year and a half in the ground, my 4ft whip has turned into at least a tree that’s reached at least 10ft tall! Truly a monster tree at this stage. Seems like it likes the soil it’s in, plus it’s Callery rootstock.
It’s even passed the two big potted Lowe’s trees (Winesap and Moonglow) that were planted last spring. It’s outgrown its 4ft tall circular cage, so I’ll have to give it some more room soon. It didn’t bloom this year, tho…
Anybody have any updates on their Pineapple pears?
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Pineapple grew a little to good for me and met a bad fate during summer storms. Once again the less vigorous backup graft of pineapple is growing very slow but looks perfect.
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Clark- Any pears ripening for you these days? Best of luck.
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