Rust is easily managed with the use of myclobutanil. But you said you often forget to spray so ……
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I like to think I am preparing for the collapse of society, not that I am overworked and forgetful.
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I’m team pears but it was a super easy call for me. There are lots of cheap apples available here, even all year since the cider mills will sell them. I also like pears more and wanted some of the better options so never bothered with putting in any apples. I would love to have more pears!
( if we do move, and I have lots of room, I may put some in just for cidering and sauce but I’d lean towards crabapples)
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Just how many trees can you manage? Seriously, I’m in retirement and have plenty of spare time (if not huge amounts of energy) and I’d have to get a lot more dedicated than I am right now to decently manage more than one more tree.
I do think I’ve got to have an apricot, though. But just one, really, just one.
:-)M
You guys have to get this addiction of yours under control, that’s all there is to it!
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One more tree for Mark! 
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I have never had FB on Moonglow but it seems to be the exception.
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The title tempted me I had to read it! Apple juice is great but getting it is a real trick without spraying weekly. To be honest about it my climate and soil is marginal at best for anything. It’s taken me nearly 30 years to grow grass in part of my orchard. This year I’ve finally accomplished growing grass everywhere. The past farmers row cropped this soil to survive for around 100 years. That way of farming destroys what took thousands of years to build. The rich top soil is washed away by rain and blown away by wind. We are less ignorant now about how we farm but the transition was necessary to get where we are today. This land is now a paradise in comparison to what it was when I got it. Pears are easy to grow and delicious!
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I agree there is a point for home growers to think more about pears as opposed to apples. I was like most in that I started out with only one row of pears vs five rows of apples. But I have most recently put in two new pear plantings and no new apple plantings. Pears get bugs and diseases like apples, but besides fireblight they are all of a much lower degree. Also if you grow winter pears they will store through the winter, just like apples. They don’t last quite as long as the long storage apples but will get you into the new year.
Besides fireblight the major challenge with pears (Euro ones that is) is the timing of picking and storing. I did have many Euro pear varieties but decided to remove most of them so I could focus on ripening a few pears well. In the new pear planting I added this spring I didn’t include any new pear varieties, I only wanted more of the ones I already like.
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Which among your top tasting pears are good storage pears?
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The longest storage pear I grow is Dana Hovey, it can make it into the new year. Winter Nelis is the best really late pear, it can make it to spring. I did grow it but the tree was in a bad spot and never fruited much; it also was very hard to prune as it makes all these thin wayward branches. I almost put it in my newest planting, but decided to focus only on proven winners for me. Maybe I will add a graft at least at some point.
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Years ago, I planted cold hardy Parker and Flemish beauty pears (I think they are the same thing) down the hill from where top soil washed in from the ag land. They came into production REALLY fast, growing into identical wide spreading forms (kind of like an apple), and have been great trees, knock on wood (stay away FB!). Maybe not a top notch pear, but they are growing in a rich soil, frost pocket (well draining) and have shrugged off most all challenges.
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Like @scottfsmith said about focusing on what you like and does good in your area is important. @snowflake is saying the same thing with those varities. Those pears in rich soil sound great.
My mouth is watering talking about them! My only question is John do you process them, eat them fresh, dry them? When pears are working for you they are great. Ayers, Warren, karls favorite, Clark’s small yellow pear, drippin honey, Douglas, Potomac, kieffer, improved kieffer, pa lai, Harrow sweet, Harrow delight, Duchess d’ angoulme, ya li , kosui , korean giant, and many many others are easy to grow here in Kansas.
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@ampersand … similar situation here… just a different fruit tree.
I took out 3 peach trees this week.
The pest and BR issues just the last few years increased tremendously… and well I decided to remove them and go back with something much more low maintenance, pest and disease free… that would give me some good fruit.
Going to replace one with a honey Jar jujube… and considering pear, mulberry, persimmon for replacements for the others.
Hey all you pear experts… I am planning to use callery root stock and graft on improved keiffer and some of our local old homestead keffir pear scionwood.
I have harvested lots of these local keiffer pears over the years and never saw any that had much pest damage. They make excellent pear preserves. The trees do occasionally get FB but I have never seen one actually die from it. They normally come back and continue to fruit even when nothing is done to the FB damage.
From your experience would you say that keiffer / improved keiffer on callery… I should get decent no spray fruit ?
If you don’t like keiffer pears … that’s ok… I do so no problem there.
Thanks.
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Parker/flemish beauty eat well, and keep fairly well too. But they are so productive, we can’t eat all of them. So, family, etc got plenty of buckets full. We have dehydrated in the past and they were great, but didn’t get to it last year because we had a very productive year for apples… which doesn’t happen enough around here. We won’t have many apples this year, so especially thankful that Parker has some pears even if the hail thinned them. The pears will taste extra good this year with the lack of other fruit! I can’t be too picky under these conditions, and just hope to have something of any sort each year. We have some regent apples still in the storage fridge from last year that we hope to dehydrate today and not let waste since we won’t have many apples in 2022.
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You can also use kieffer as an interstem if there is a disease resistant euro variety that you ever want to try. Works very well.
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I also love pear trees. But I feel apple trees also have a place in the garden. Our pear trees have so much fruit that they are bowed down. I always have to lift the branches when I cut the grass. The apple trees have half as much fruit but I like the configuration of the trees (the trees stand upright and look like a hand with fingers out-stretched upwards). BUT I love pear nectar juice better than apple cider. So my vote is…keep at least a couple apple trees. Your kids will find it easier to climb apple trees.
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@snowflake … good to know… thanks.
I will be happy to just get one or two to grow survive and fruit here. I tried 5 or 6 more fancy varieties here between 2002 and 2012 and they all ended up dead from FB.
Auburn has told me that Orient does well for him… and is a good pear. If I do get some callery/keiffer to live and fruit… I may try for orient next.
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I was curious when you mentioned jujube trees. I never thought about growing them, and now that I am retired, I am not sure if I have time to wait 7-8 years for fruit. The jujube trees that I see at the garden center all look THIN and scrawny. What has your experience been growing them? Is the fruit as appetizing as apples and pears? Most important, I like to make fruit nectar. Is the jujube fruit good for making jiuce?
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@Bill … just a FYI… I started two jujube trees spring 2020…
Last year (yr 2) they both blossomed but set no fruit… this year (yr 3) lots of blossoms again and I see fruit set on both trees.
Shanxi li and GA866 are the varieties I have.
If I could do that over… I would probably select honey Jar and Chico and possibly sugarcane.
No experience at eating or processing the fruit… yet. Hope to get that this year.
I got my jujubes from One Green World and below is what they looked like at planting.
The first two are jujubes.
Now in yr 3 they are 8 and 10 ft tall (with pruning for height management) and around 4 to 5 ft wide each. Nice little trees bearing fruit hopefully… looking good now… in yr 3.
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Jujube, persimmon, pawpaw are all super easy no spray fruit trees. All fruit has pros and cons. Pears are excellent fruit trees!