Genetics of the scion often times has little to do with the fruit you get. You might wonder what causes my huge fruit on some trees and small fruit on others. Its about rootstock, nutrients, water, and sunshine. Thinning can be necessary. My largest pears come from beautifolia rootstock. My smallest tend to come from ohxf. My callery rootstocks are mixed but most cause excess fruiting. Nutrients , water , sunshine , and rootstock are all things you can control. I expect to meet with controvery on this post just like i do with standard rootstocks versus dwarfs. I prefer standard rootstock. Ohxf333 start out as very tiny fruit and improve over the years. I use all of these rootstocks and others like pyrus communis seldom mentioned. I have lost many beautifolia to fireblight now. Im going to have to go to a different rootstock in time.
Interesting tidbit. My Warren, planted in 2017, is on OHxF333. I’m getting my first big crop this year. The fruit are small, which I thought might be due to the very dry summer. But a young Magness planted nearby in 2021 on Quince has much larger fruit, as does Harrow Delight planted in 2017 on OHxF97. Given the performance of the other trees and your comments, I’m thinking now that the Warren fruit reflects the rootstock. Thoughts?
Most definately true. Ohxf333 causes fast production but not good pears. Give it 2 or 3 more years the roots will catch up and the flavor and size of pears will improve. I cant even eat some ohxf333 fruit the first years. I normally dont even pick them. The roots on ohxf333 are inferior to every other pear i grow. Callery and BET rootstocks shine greatest during a drought. My neighbors that use ohxf rootstocks wont even get pears and yet my callery pears were still covered. Callery have massive roots that have more access to nutrients. That is not to say they uptake all of the nutrients but that is a seperate conversation.
So everything is great about callery rootstock right? Unfortunately no, they can be invasive and are given to cause overproduction which leads to small or less flavorful fruit at times
20th Century (edit: Harrow Sweet) on callery. There were about 5 others slightly bigger but not much. It was a wet summer, so water wasnt an issue. They should get bigger next year.
I only know about a 20th Century pear that is an Asian pear. 20th Century Asian pear does not look like that at all.
Is there a European pear called 20th Century?
@mamuang is right of course. @39thparallel
grows them also. 20th century looks like these photos below i located with a quick web search. Nice looking pears your growing @blueKYstream. Scions can get mislabeled at times.
Sorry, it was Harrow Sweet. This was from a tree with 8 grafted varieties. I used this tree as a backup for storing scions. Harrow Sweet fruited last year and this year. They were bigger last year. 20th Century (asian) fruited 8 or 10 this year, slightly smaller than I anticipate in the future. Korean Giant/Olympic has one pear still going. Its baseball size at the moment. Harvest Queen has one or two as well that are on the small side.