The really fireblight resistant pears are a short list

@marten never change. I have never received a more well written, concise, and organized response.

I applaud you good sir. This is invaluable information and I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to share it with the forum.

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Apparently Seckel XL is not FB (fireblight) resistant but Clarks small yellow is. Or atleast it is to the strain that passed through.

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@JesusisLordandChrist

Clarks small yellow is highly resistant. It could get a fireblight strike but it will not die. Xl seckle has some resistance to fireblight. That new strain of fireblight is very strange stuff.

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CSY bloomed well this year for me and set some fruit. FB took out the top half of the tree afterwards. Im hoping it will build some immunity. This has been a really nasty strain of FB here in the piedmont of western NC. I have a tree sold to me as anjou but resembles Warren that is mostly untouched, maybe 3 or 4 strikes on a 20ft tall by 20ft wide canopy and absolutely full of fruit. Ayers, Moonglow and Kieffer are the only pear varieties that I can confirm had enough resistance to keep fruit this year.

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Clarks pear will not die from any fireblight i have seen. It is a very strong tree with high disease resistance. If there is some fruit left on it the fruit will be either exceptional or terrible depending on the year.

YMMV

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@krismoriah Hello Chris! I am currently on the hunt for a source for Dearborn Seedling Pear scions for this upcoming season or something to help preserve this cultivar :slight_smile: Any chance you can push me in the right direction? I searched up Dearborn Seedling and Dearborn pear, and you seem to be the only person that has talked about it here, at least thats what the site seems to say now. Any help will be greatly appreciated if you can, thank you!

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NAFEX group on Facebook… an admin (SC Williams) has it going and has shared scion and seed in the past… YMMV but its probable to acquire via him.

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I just bought a grafted Dearborn Seedling from him last week (grafted this summer). If next year goes well I can likely send a small amount of scion wood spring 2027.

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So, just a comment on fireblight in pears. We don’t have it as bad as some here in Wisconsin, but I have lost some Asian pears to FB after getting winter damage. One way I try and keep it at bay is by not pruning my pears at all (except to remove dead wood). My experience has been that both Asian and Euro pears have a decent growth structure and fruit pretty well even without pruning and it helps reduce entry points for blight.

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@clarkinks Looking at your pics seems you get a fair amount of FB. Do you prune bad strikes out immediately or do you wait till winter?

I’ve got it bad this year. I’ve butchered seven trees removing it so far, but more trees keep popping up with it.

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@Robert

Some years are bad but others there is none at all. Trimming it off is best

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Do you trim hardcore strikes immediately or wait for winter to do it?

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Asap always

What if the strikes are on almost every branch? Some in the middle (all from flower hits), some at the ends .

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I would prune them up

Hey there Clark. I have a Magness pear on Quince rootstock that is currently still in a container for planting out in the fall. I’m shaping it into a fan for planting against my fence. It’s a really nice tree and seems quite vigorous, especially considering It’s on a dwarfing Quince rootstock.

Magness is supposed to be highly fireblight resistant, but this Magness tree actually seems to get far more firelblight strikes than the rest of my pear varieties I grow. The difference with this tree is that the strikes are very superficial.

By this I mean that the tips of the leaf, or maybe 1/3 of the leaf goes black and dies. The rest of the leaf is fine and it doesn’t seem to have a harmful effect on the rest of the tree. This tree hasn’t blossomed yet as its only a couple of years old, so I’ve no idea if it will be heavily hit by blossom blight.

My question to you would be, does this sound like typical Magness behaviour to you. I was rather surprised when I first got the Magness tree that it was actually taking more fireblight strikes than my other trees. Now I’m beginning to wonder if this is a Magness at all, because of the frequency of strikes it gets. No real damage from the hits, but having so many more strikes than my other trees is starting to make me wonder about it.

Does this sound normal for a Magness to you?

Thanks for any insight you could provide.

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@tbg9b

Yes magness and Warren both are given to do that here. They don’t do it every year here but they get a million black leaves at times and the infection cannot move into the limb. I never saw it systemic in magneess yet.

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Thanks, I was beginning to wonder if I was shipped the wrong variety. :+1:

I have Magness and Warren grafted on the same rootstock literally side by side. Magness has zero fireblight strikes this year where Warren took nearly a dozen. The worst affected was a limb about 3 feet of which died. Damage was limited to the top of the tree, no damage at all on the sides. Blooming was light this year with Warren setting several fruit. Magness has no fruit.

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