Thanks for the reply @Willyb71 but it looks like the pic you described didn’t get posted.
I bought some jujubes from Bob Wells several years ago — they are the biggest and best ones in my yard.
Maybe it’s a little gauche to quote myself, but it looks like I’m going to have to issue a retraction! Look what was on one of my Warren pears today:
Wonders never cease. This tree is just starting its 4th leaf, on callery rootstock, with somewhat less than 2-inch caliper at the base. I bent the branches almost horizontal this winter, and it looks like that tactic might have paid off.
I sure hope it turns out to be genuine.
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Marten, flower initials form during the preceding fall. Your flowers were present long before you bent the branches.
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Looks like I might have to issue a second retraction, then!
Although, looking over my records, it appears that I bent the branches on that tree on October 16. The leaves on the tree were still all green at that time, but the first frost was imminent, and I doubt that any serious vegetative growth was ongoing.
Could the fruiting buds have formed in that interval, or is it the best inference that the tree had formed its flower buds independent of my branch-bending efforts?
Different species do different things. Persimmons for example flower and produce fruit on current green growth. Pears, pecans, and many others form flower initials in the previous growing season. It is important for most such trees to produce fruit, then have a refractive period to store energy for the next season and to produce flower initials for the next year’s fruit. Since your tree did not fruit last year, it had very good opportunity to store energy and produce flower initials. Caution that Warren is notorious for producing flowers that do not result in fruit, usually the first year or two they bloom.
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Stonefruit and pome fruits form flower buds in the summer before flowering. This makes sense for a number of reasons but an easy example is that if you have a heavily cropped tree so that most of the nutrient reserves are used by the current season crop there is less available for a floral development for the following year. For this reason a number of fruit species tend to be alternate bearing. Olive is the most profound example that I can think of since tens of thousands of flowers are formed in a crop year and generally none in the following year.
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2025 About 1% of Warren flowers got pollinated, surrounded by 7 other pear varieties. Karl’s Favorite is too young to flower and hopefully pollinate difficult Warren.
My two Warren pears are both on their fifth leaf.
Last year, one of them flowered (just a few clusters) and set two pears.
This year, both of them flowered, quite a bit more heavily:
I had enough fruit set that I had to thin out some pears – in some cases, every flower in a cluster set fruit. Looks like I’ll have around fifty Warren pears this year if a critter doesn’t intervene.
Here are the trees about three or four weeks later:
The pollen source was very likely Korean Giant, which bloomed nearby at almost the same time. There were bumblebees, carpenter bees, honeybees, hover flies, and lightning bugs on the flowers, but the most determined pollinators were probably the bumblebees.
My Warrens were probably helped by the fact that at the time that they bloomed, there were few other flowers available for the bees. Once the blueberries started blooming a few days later, all the bees seemed to abandon the pear flowers.
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I added 2 grafts of Warren and 2 of Karls Favorite to my Kiefer tree this spring.
They are all doing very well. Hopefully I get to try those in a few years.
I waited 7 years for lapins cherry and mt royal plum… hopefully warren will come in sooner.
TNHunter
I tied some branches down on my Warren tree. It seemed to help quite a bit with flowering.
Warren tends to be a terminal flowering pear meaning it sets flowers only near the tips of branches. Pulling some branches down near horizontal causes buds to sprout forming more terminals which enables more flowers that set fruit.
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@Fusion_power … when I grafted my kiefer and improved kiefer trees (to callery transplants) spring 2023.
I also grafted a scion of orient to a callery near my mailbox. It grew wide and low with no training since it is roadside and the sun available there is abundant low and wide… but not straight up.
It set blossom clusters this spring on limb tips down low.
My kiefers out in full sun did not bloom this spring. This is the start of year 3 for them… perhaps they all bloom next year.
TNHunter
Ayers, Winter Nelis, Shinko, Potomac, and half a dozen more of my trees grafted 4 years ago have fruit this year. I’m looking forward to sampling and seeing which have to be mellowed and which can be eaten fresh from the tree. I tasted Warren last year with 8 mature fruit on my tree grafted in spring 2020 with scionwood from LuckyP.
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I have 2 grafts of Potomac and 2 of Bell added to my improved kiefer tree this spring. All 4 are doing very well.
Hopefully with Kiefer, improved kiefer, orient, potomac, bell, warren, karls fav… I will have good pollination for all.
Clark recommended karls fav for warren and I grafted those on the same tree.
TNHunter
I have pulled all my Warren branches horizontal for years now. Finally got a good bloom this year with 4 or 5 fruit to show for it. Sitting just above it in same tree are two 2024 Karl’s Favorite grafts that should do the pollination in a year or two that Kiefer, Potomac, Korean Giant, Harrow Sweet, Blakes Pride cannot.
I found the best way to get fruit from my Warren Pear was to graft it to other varieties. After 17 years and about 5 Warren pears, I decided to graft precocious and reliable varieties like D’Anjou and Dana Hovey. The tree is fairly vigorous, and half of the varieties have flowered in their second year. My tree is sizable now, have 6 different varieties on it, so get fruit every year.
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Yes I grafted Warren to Potomac years ago. Warren branch (now 1/3 of the tree) is one year away from getting grafted over, maybe to Bell.
I have heard that Warren can be self fertile in California. This year my Warren tree had blossoms for the first time but no fruit set. May need to get some Karl’s Favorite grafted on in the future.
I have fruit that set on my Warren this year. It’s a first year in ground tree, but it was purchased as a large tree, about 11’ tall in a relatively small pot. I hacked the heck out of the roots to free them up before planting and cut back some of the branches to match the root ball. I then bent all the branches down to about 45 degrees and tied them down through the growing season. It’s either self fruitful, or was pollinated by an Asian pear that set a handful of blooms.
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I have a 5 in 1 pear I grafted to an old stump. 4/5 are flowering including Warren. I’m in CA