Appleseed, Fondante des Moulins-Lille and Docteur Desportes are two obscure European pears I picked from the Corvallis repository years ago. Both are excellent pears and grow well in our climate. I’m sure there are others as well.
Its too bad I planted my pears too close, I have lots of varieties including Belle Lucrative that have not fruited in 13 years. I also had to thin out a bunch before they fruited once I realized my mistake.
My pears (all of which are Euro) and I am in zone 7a, are disease prone. I spray Monterey FF and it seems to work on them just fine. I also spray them with Immunox. Its the only groups of trees that are prone to ‘fireblight’, but that does not occur until the end of Oct. Until then all of the leaves are bright green and the fruit is fine. I have Seckel, Anjou, Abate Fetel, Flemish Beauty. This is just how I keep them healthy.
For me, in it’s first year fruiting, Potomac exceeded the quality of Bartlett, by a fairly wide margin. It also fruited in it’s second year I think, but so did Bartlett planted right next to it. Both planted at the same time. Bartlett on standard and Potomac on Quince I think.
Bartlett did however carry a much heavier load of somewhat larger fruit. Potomac is a better behaved grower and a vastly more attractive tree also if that’s of any consequence.
Jeff,
Would you characterize the flavor and texture of your Potomac pears as similar to D’Anjou? Buttery melting sweet acidulous and juicy?
Scott,
Corvallis says Dr. Desportes can get fireblight. Has yours had any trouble in that regard? It sounds delicious.
Very similar to D’Anjou…yes, also similar in appearance though I think a bit smaller. I probably allowed it to carry too many also and deer got a good number of them. I really need another season or two to get a good read on them, but so far I’m pretty optimistic.
I do not however have the benefit of sampling many different varieties of pears like a lot of you. I did do a fair amount of research and am very confident it’s identity is correct, so no worries there I don’t think.
It sounds awesome!
I remember Docteur Desportes as a good one from multiple tastings.
My pears don’t get much fireblight Matt. Apples 20’ away would get nailed but not the pears. My Dana Hovey got badly blighted this year but it was through a stump I had done a graft on - the grafted shoot on the stump was very vigorous and was highly blight-susceptible and infected the whole tree.
You and I are on the same page. I have several varieties of pears and all are reported to be mostly fireblight resistant. If some of these end up to not be resistant I don’t intend to keep them. There are just so many good options to mess with disease prone pear trees. Bill
There are some such as abate fetel I gotta try at least once. I know its a bad decision and yet I look at that pear and I need to eat one at least in my lifetime.
I can see Clark’s point, and I don’t think that there are equivalent replacements for all the heirloom pears. Magness is not Comice- the skin is much thicker as I recall and they’ve yet to breed a FB resistant Bosc.
But for the most part I’m in Fluffy’s camp- Harrow Sweet is my staple pear the way Goldrush is my staple apple. Taste great and less demanding, even beyond the FB issue. Bearing young and being psyla and scab resistant are just as important here.
I do still grow Bartlett in my nursery and somehow it has never been affected by FB but if I was in KS I’d only risk a branch (graft) and not a whole tree with varieties susceptible to blight. .
So what are the top 5 pears to avoid? I always hear that Bosc is a FB magnet but is there a pear similar in texture and flavor to Bosc? Forrelle gets blasted for it being prone to FB.
Alan,
You and The Fluffy Bunny are right about fire blight resistance and I do follow that school of thought 99.999% of the time. You have seen my posts such as this one Pear tree Fireblight research so you dont have to . So the practical side of me grows all FB resistant pears but I do have a tree here or there I graft three feet up on a mature wild callery that’s something like clapps favorite. I know FB will get it but I can change varities and two years later I will be producing on the same tree. That’s not an approach I would recommend but when done properly your only out a little time and the roots are FB resistant. I’ve learned the hard way branches are better than trees. If the main trunk is wild callery you never get the pear killed to the ground. At least I have not had one grafted that way killed yet. Formerly I grafted low with the idea I did not want that wild callery producing the trunk I wanted the scion trunk. We live and learn.
I avoid the fireblight magnets, but beyond that it seems to be very location-specific. Nearly all my fireblight problems are on my asian pears, I don’t think I have ever lost a European pear to fireblight. I took out my Dana Hovey this summer but its because I grafted an asian to a trunk on it and that graft got infected and infected the whole trunk. I have the same approach on apples. For them I have had to remove many more. One thing I would agree is if you don’t feel like experimenting with how bad your blight will be and possibly top working down the road, go with the blight-resistant varieties.
Am I being fair to pick my top five Euros pears: Harvest Queen, Comice, Harrow’s Sweet, Seckel, and Bosc because there are lots of good one out there?
Tony
I found my personal favorite euro pear at the grocery store today. Forrelle. This is not the correct time of year to harvest forelle as its an early season pear. The blush was very vibrant red amd they tasted great. Some need more ripening but the one I ate was really good. How do they store early fruits to make them available this time of year?
Tony,
I’m with you. Although I have not eaten a lot of E.pear varieties, I’ve read so many thread about them. Taste-wise, those would be my top five, too. Disease resistance, don’t know that.
I only know that Harrow Sweet is well worth growing for both taste and disease resistance where I live.
On your list, I’ve eaten my home grown Harrow Sweet, store bought Comice and Bose and like both a lot. Even my picky daughter announces that she loves Euro pears after eating HS and Comice. She does not care for Asian pears which I have plenty. Oh well.
Was it grown in the Northern or Southern hemisphere?
