Welcome to the New Pears Forum!

Welcome to the new pears forum! Home for everything pears!

https://permies.com/f/434/pears

Pears have been growing on me lately. (Pun intended. ) Some are melting, sweet, and juicy, while others are crisp and tangy. Some come in summer and last only a short while, and others come near winter, and in some places can store until Spring!

Here's a cool picture of some of the more popular pears. From left to right they are 1) Bartlett 2) and 3) are red Bartlett varieties 4) Anjou 5) Bosc 6) Comice 7) Concorde and 8 ) Seckel. My favorite of these is Comice! What's yours?



But don't stop here, there are so many other awesome varieties out there to explore and grow!

Share all of your pear pursuits here!

I just ordered some Burford Pear scionwood (from these folks https://peacefulheritage.com/shop/unassigned/pear-scion-wood/) to graft to wild callery pear - my first grafting experiment!  Probably will do whip and tongue, as the rootstock is small.

I planted a Seckel and a Plumblee this winter. Hopefully they turn out well! I've never tasted either.

Josh Garbo wrote:I just ordered some Burford Pear scionwood to graft to wild callery pear - my first grafting experiment!  Probably will do whip and tongue, as the rootstock is small.

I hadn't heard of the Burford pear yet, may have to add that to my scionwood order now. It sounds like a great variety.

I did some pear whip and tongue grafts for the first time last spring and had really good results with it. Apparently the baby rabbits also appreciated it. Except they thought they tasted like candy.

From https://www.albemarleciderworks.com/orchard/pear/burford-pear

The Burford Pear is an excellent European pear with smooth buttery melting flesh, sweet and delicately flavored.  It is considered disease resistant to fireblight.  Highly recommended.

Tom Burford shared this tree with us.  He relates that “Burford Pear was a selection from my great-grandfather's orchard that he found outstanding because of it flavor, ripening quality, tree stamina and above all resistance to fireblight and pear psylla.  It likely is also a genetic dwarf.  A 75 to 100 year old tree was my childhood backyard favorite pear tree…,The tree grows some 16—20 feet and has extraordinarily limber branches. With a full load of from 17 to 20 bushels the unfruited limbs nearly head high would bend to the ground with mature fruit without breakage.   These  pears can beautifully. The ripening time for harvest is forgiving and even when fully ripe on the tree or gathered from windfalls  the pears are useable for dessert, canning and pickling.

Tom also  declares this pear excellent for perry and has made an excellent pear vinegar from it as well. Tom is unsure of the provenence of this pear, it could be a seedling or it could be of European derivation, possibly France.  

Jake Esselstyn wrote:I planted a Seckel and a Plumblee this winter. Hopefully they turn out well! I've never tasted either.

I tasted Seckel for the first time this year and liked it. It has a really sweet and good flavor.

The ones I ate didn't get melting and juicy like most Euopean pears when they get really ripe. It was more juicy before it got very ripe.

I've never tasted Plumblee, let us know how they turn out!

I've never tasted Plumblee, let us know how they turn out!

I'll get back to you in ~5 years.

Steve Thorn wrote:Welcome to the new pears forum! Home for everything pears!

Pears have been growing on me lately. (Pun intended. ) Some are melting, sweet, and juicy, while others are crisp and tangy. Some come in summer and last only a short while, and others come near winter, and in some places can store until Spring!

Here's a cool picture of some of the more popular pears. From left to right they are 1) Bartlett 2) and 3) are red Bartlett varieties 4) Anjou 5) Bosc 6) Comice 7) Concorde and 8 ) Seckel. My favorite of these is Comice! What's yours?



But don't stop here, there are so many other awesome varieties out there to explore and grow!

Share all of your pear pursuits here!

Most of the excellent pears you show will not reliably receive sufficient chill hours for me in coastal Northwest, FL, zone 8b.  One must carefully select your fruit trees for that region.   The most common pear is kieffer.  No matter the label in the box store it is most likely a mislabeled kieffer.  
For example the standard bartlett is a poor choice for me.  I have what is called a southern bartlett that is likely in no way related to bartlett pears.  It was discovered in Abbreville, LA and was named after the shape of its pears.  
The best consumer source of southern pears is Just Fruits and Exotics in Crawfordville, FL.  Pricey but their selection is excellent.  

In my region of Ohio, the ornamental Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) has naturalized along roadsides, bike paths, and abandoned fields. I've been wondering if the small pears from these plants can be made into a preserve or a hard cider after a frost. The branches are brittle and regularly break off in storms. The flowers are beautiful but smell terrible.

For dehydrating  Seckel was my family preference. So my sister and her husband planted seedlings from our grandfathers homestead on this farm. Only one came true. It tends to produce only every second or third year. The other trees are three times larger and produce massive amounts of fruit.  The fruit is very biter with an alum taste and very slow to ripen after falling or being picked.  Experimentation proved that pickled or dried the alum flavor is nullified though it has less of the cinnamon flavor of the Seckel.
My suggestion is if you find productive seedling trees with the bitter flavor [which is a common characteristic] They may be useful when processed even if they seem unusable when fresh.

I tasted a moonglow pear last year for the first time. It was very sweet, juicy and tasty! I would get a tree if there was room here. I haven’t grafted before - perhaps I’ll try that. The tree lives on the south coast of BC and is 10-15 years old and doing very well. It is listed as being very fireblight resistant.

Hans Quistorff wrote:For dehydrating  Seckel was my family preference. So my sister and her husband planted seedlings from our grandfathers homestead on this farm. Only one came true. It tends to produce only every second or third year. The other trees are three times larger and produce massive amounts of fruit.  The fruit is very biter with an alum taste and very slow to ripen after falling or being picked.  Experimentation proved that pickled or dried the alum flavor is nullified though it has less of the cinnamon flavor of the Seckel.
My suggestion is if you find productive seedling trees with the bitter flavor [which is a common characteristic] They may be useful when processed even if they seem unusable when fresh.

 
Might be good for making perry.

Carl Mohr wrote:

Hans Quistorff wrote:For dehydrating  Seckel was my family preference. So my sister and her husband planted seedlings from our grandfathers homestead on this farm. Only one came true. It tends to produce only every second or third year. The other trees are three times larger and produce massive amounts of fruit.  The fruit is very biter with an alum taste and very slow to ripen after falling or being picked.  Experimentation proved that pickled or dried the alum flavor is nullified though it has less of the cinnamon flavor of the Seckel.
My suggestion is if you find productive seedling trees with the bitter flavor [which is a common characteristic] They may be useful when processed even if they seem unusable when fresh.

 
Might be good for making perry.

Actually we use them when making cider because they tend to make the cider clarify settling out the solids more rapidly and giving more complexity to  the flavor. I checked perry is the proper term for fermented pear juice.  These are not quite sweet enough and too bitter to use alone. Other pears that may be undesirable fresh may be good for making perry if they have the sugar content as other threads on this forum have mentioned.

If that tree naturalized so well would it be a good tree for grafting onto?

Perry pears are normally not good for eating and i think are a different group of pears.  I did try starting a perry pear, but my climate is not suitable for the variety I tried.  But I have a bunch of callery flowering pear seedling in pots.  Maybe I will start them.  They will likely be hybrids and might have larger fruit.  I high grafted callery rootstock and let the below graft branches grow.  

Picture last march 2020.  They are now in separate pots.  I have decided not to graft them since I have enough pear trees and will simply plant them and see what they will do.  

leigh gates wrote:If that tree naturalized so well would it be a good tree for grafting onto?

Yes I think so if you have the seedlings available.

Here's a neat thread discussing it in more detail.

https://permies.com/t/35817/Grafting-Bradford-Callery-Pear

Ryan M Miller wrote:In my region of Ohio, the ornamental Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) has naturalized along roadsides, bike paths, and abandoned fields. I've been wondering if the small pears from these plants can be made into a preserve or a hard cider after a frost. The branches are brittle and regularly break off in storms. The flowers are beautiful but smell terrible.

Here's an interesting thread discussing eating them in more detail.

https://permies.com/t/26909/bradford-pear-id-discussion#211532

Thanks for starting this thread - plenty to think about. I planted a Comice about 6/7 years ago, more in hope than expectation as we had previously failed with a Conference and a Williams because of pear rust. I had even less hope when there were signs of the rust on the Comice a couple of years ago, but last year was a stonking year for fruit of all kinds, and we had a huge harvest of pears as well. Enough to justify making some pear vodka and pickled pears and still having plenty to eat fresh. The pear rust was still there on the leaves, but not so bad as previous years. During the previous winter I had started clearing the ground around the tree to make a perennial veg bed, and included some comfrey plants at the base. I wonder if that had an effect? Or maybe it had just got itself established. Certainly the tree looked much healthier and grew well. Now I am impatient to see how it will do this year!

On the subject of Perry, it is the pear equivalent of fermented cider made from apples. Where I live has a big tradition of making cider and Perry. Years ago Perry used to be marketed in little bottles under the brand name Babycham - it was very sweet and not very good, and went out of favour when wine became more affordable. Now though there is a big revival in making Perry and local orchards are developing some good stuff - not quite champagne but still a very pleasant drink.

Our 1-acre northern Utah permaculture edible landscape held public tour twice a year—one on Earth Day and a second Fall Harvest tour that featured tastings. EVERYONE who sampled the Seckel pear wanted to plant it. They are really spectacular. Mine was slow to begin fruiting after planting (about 4 years), but once fruiting commenced, I had no years without a crop (even despite some big May snowstorms) over 10+ years. Easy care tree as well: we never pruned or thinned the fruits. Have sold that property now and am creating a larger, 30-acre permaculture farm. Definitely planting Seckel pear again. In addition to eating it fresh, we dry it and can spiced pears. Another pear well-loved in our orchard was Ubileen. It is early ripening, ready much earlier than the others, great for fresh eating, but doesn't store well.

Quick note about the flavor of pears being very dependent upon soil ecology (microbiome) and pest pressure. We had two Ubileen trees. Initially, our first tree was planted near the property border, and a new neighbor began spraying his lawn excessively, so I planted a second tree in a well-protected spot. Both trees had lovely soil I'd nurtured for years and were mulched deeply in wood chips. However, the taste of the pears from the 2 trees was remarkably different, with the protected tree's flavor over-the-top amazing and the tree near the chemical drift just ok. Lots of fungal threads in the mulch of the protected tree, whereas those near the neighbor were greatly diminished. In addition, the protected tree always showed some insect leaf damage, whereas the leaves on the tree near the neighbor were untouched. This was a great teaching point during tour. The phytonutrients which give fruits and veggies their amazing flavors are produced by plants in response to nibbling insects, while mineral density and BRIX require robust populations of soil organisms (with high fungal-to-bacterial ratio).

There's a nice book by Joan Morgan "The Book of Pears: The Definitive History and Guide to Over 500 Varieties." The paintings by Elisabeth Dowle are fantastic, showing the bloom, fruits on the branch (with leaves), interior, and fully ripened fruit. Of the Kieffer pear, she describes the flavor as "musk, gritty center, tough skin." The variety was bred to resist fire blight that was devastating America's orchards in the late 19th C., but the quality of the pear was not good enough for the market. The book includes Asian pears. I really enjoyed reading the history, which makes up a large part of the book.

I work for a large company with many acres of comice pears and a few bosc, I also have experience with bartlett from another orchard I worked for. I prune these trees all winter and work with them all year so if anyone has any questions I'm glad to help!

My favorite pear is probably a bosc but really I like almost any fruit I eat haha.

I know a lot about growing pears from a comercial standpoint as that's my day job, but I would love to hear anything about growing them in a permaculture setting. Right now I only have room for a small garden but, someday I hope to have my own small orchard to do permaculture gardening and silvopasture under the trees.

Alma Naylor wrote:I work for a large company with many acres of comice pears and a few bosc, I also have experience with bartlett from another orchard I worked for. I prune these trees all winter and work with them all year so if anyone has any questions I'm glad to help!

My favorite pear is probably a bosc but really I like almost any fruit I eat haha.

I know a lot about growing pears from a comercial standpoint as that's my day job, but I would love to hear anything about growing them in a permaculture setting. Right now I only have room for a small garden but, someday I hope to have my own small orchard to do permaculture gardening and silvopasture under the trees.

I am focusing on the last sentence relative to permanence.  

The longevity of pears depends very much on its  what it is grafted to.  Pears grafted on callery (flowering pear) rootstock I have been told only live about 40-50 years.  Pear grafted during the  civil war era plantations were said to live much longer like a 100 years or so and I do not know the rootstock.  Pears that I assume were planted from seed have lived for centuries in some cases.   i am not sure how difficult it is to root pear cuttings.  Usually I am told it does not work.  But was I told of a case by the late travis callahan where it did work for leconte pear.    

Thanks Carl. I am pretty familiar with the rootstocks currently being used in my area(mostly quince but it's not compatible with many varieties) and these trees should last about that long, maybe up to 70 years with good care. I know a little about the old rootstocks and I know of a few very old trees and old chopped down orchards that have a few of the rootstocks growing tall. I've sampled a few fruit from the old trees and even the old rootstocks and found nothing worth going back for. Some time I might try to ID them though.

All that said; when I have my own orchard I plan to plant most trees from seed and try a few cuttings to have some pure bosc and bartlett.

Alma Naylor wrote:Thanks Carl. I am pretty familiar with the rootstocks currently being used in my area(mostly quince but it's not compatible with many varieties) and these trees should last about that long, maybe up to 70 years with good care. I know a little about the old rootstocks and I know of a few very old trees and old chopped down orchards that have a few of the rootstocks growing tall. I've sampled a few fruit from the old trees and even the old rootstocks and found nothing worth going back for. Some time I might try to ID them though.

All that said; when I have my own orchard I plan to plant most trees from seed and try a few cuttings to have some pure bosc and bartlett.

In my area the dwarfing rootstock is often said to be quince type.  It has a very reduced root structure and is not recommended relative to fireblight.   In our soils the trees on that dwarfing rootstock should be staked.  
There is a Pyro Dwarf pear rootstock that is said to be much better from germany IIRC.  https://anfic.com.au/variety/pyro-dwarf-pear-rootstock/  

Plant and rootstock performance

High precocity and yield efficiency with fruit in 2-3 years.
Uniform fruit size.
Good compatibility with all varieties.
Good anchorage.
High frost hardiness.
No lime-induced chlorosis on high pH soils.
Starts bearing in the 2nd leaf.
Produces a tree about 50% smaller than OHxF 97.
Has moderate resistance to fireblight.
Trees on Pyrodwarf seem to shut down earlier and form fruit buds not the shoot tips.
Suckering
No sucker development.

quince but it's not compatible with many varieties)

Many use an interstem for that.  

All that said; when I have my own orchard I plan to plant most trees from seed and try a few cuttings to have some pure bosc and bartlett.

 

It can difficult to do.  If you have not done it I suggest you start practicing now.  I have been told it is possible with LeConte.  

Le Conte Soft Pear- Super Soft and Flavorful!

Le Conte is thought to be a Chinese sand pear European pear hybrid. The fruit are a beautiful bell shape and pink-blushed golden color, Le Conte pear has a soft melting texture. It will ripen on the trees or can be picked when the ground color lightens slightly for long term storage. Le Conte is an extremely productive tree with good resistance to fire blight. This pear is referred to in a book printed in 1886 (Florida Fruits and How to Raise Them, by Helen Warner) as being a “fine-flavored, juicy aromatic fruit.” Incidentally, it was bringing in $5-6 per bushel in Liberty County, Georgia at that time! Ripens mid to late August

I found a pineapple pear and didn't know what it would be like, but since they were cheap $8,I thought I would try it.   I planted it about 10 years ago and still have not had any fruit on it. So this year I saved seeds from some pear trees that have been growing here about 50 years. I'll see what I get from them

Saralee Couchoud wrote:I found a pineapple pear and didn't know what it would be like, but since they were cheap $8,I thought I would try it.   I planted it about 10 years ago and still have not had any fruit on it. So this year I saved seeds from some pear trees that have been growing here about 50 years. I'll see what I get from them

There are several pears that are called a pineapple pear.  and you have to hope that grafted pear that you purchased is even labeled correctly.  You will have wait to be it bears unless you can contact the nursery that did the grafting for additional information assuming their workers did not mislabel the grafts.  

Our front orchard is going in this spring. We've got 9 trees on their way to us including 3 pears! It's our first time growing trees from whips and we're excited to see what we can do. Our guilds are figured out and seeding starts for the herbs this weekend.

Pears we are planting:
Summercrisp
Clapp
Patten

We're ordering from a local nursery that has been around for a long time. Hoping that the positioning we've chosen works out well.

Julian Williams wrote:Our front orchard is going in this spring. We've got 9 trees on their way to us including 3 pears! It's our first time growing trees from whips and we're excited to see what we can do. Our guilds are figured out and seeding starts for the herbs this weekend.

Pears we are planting:
Summercrisp
Clapp
Patten

We're ordering from a local nursery that has been around for a long time. Hoping that the positioning we've chosen works out well.

Best to choose trees with over lapping bloom periods.  They should be close enough to facilitate bee pollination.  

I looked up this forum and it seems very few posts talked about growing pear trees from seeds. I planted four Bartlett pear seeds last year and transplanted the seedlings in different locations. The best one grew to 4.5 ft tall and the base of the whip about 3/4 inch. The shape and size of seed grown pear was totally different then my peach tree and it's fun to see that. I learnt that pear trees bear much slower. So how many years it usually takes to flower in zone 6? 5 years maybe?

Yeah I would think 5 years would be a good average estimate based on info from others. I've heard some varieties fruit really quickly and some can take a lot longer.

I've noticed on my pear trees that they fruit sooner on more horizontal branches and if they are not given fertilization to encourage heavy vegetative growth.

That's awesome your pear tree grew so much its first year, would love to see a photo if you have one!

I found photo of my first year barlette pear seedling. It was essentially a stick. Tsc has kieffer pear tree for sale so I bought one for cross pollination purpose. That bare root tree had big roots severed. I am afraid it will take months to grow new roots and get established. Let's see how these two will grow this year.

For a few years now I’ve been experimenting with grafting pears onto hawthorns that grow wild on our property. I often cut down the hawthorns and then wait a year to let the water sprouts grow, and then graft onto those. I’d say they take about 50% of the time. I have also grafted quince and medlar onto hawthorn.

Carl Mohr wrote:

Julian Williams wrote:Our front orchard is going in this spring. We've got 9 trees on their way to us including 3 pears! It's our first time growing trees from whips and we're excited to see what we can do. Our guilds are figured out and seeding starts for the herbs this weekend.

Pears we are planting:
Summercrisp
Clapp
Patten

We're ordering from a local nursery that has been around for a long time. Hoping that the positioning we've chosen works out well.

Best to choose trees with over lapping bloom periods.  They should be close enough to facilitate bee pollination.  

Thanks for that. After a bit of a search
Summercrisp: Mid-May (may be later in my climate)
Clapp: Mid-spring?
Patten: Mid-spring? slightly self-fertile

So I'll have to see what happens, and with the conditions here specifically. I'm also really interested in growing from seed, but that's a stretch goal.

My wife joined the Arbor Society and they sent her a bunch of pear scions. She stuck them in the ground and to date one has survived a hostile (ex)husband with a lawnmower.
I don't know what kind they are but I intend to take a bunch of scions off it and stick them in the ground on my place and my neighbors (kin). I just want to propagate them. One fruit tree every 10 miles or so, around my area, is unsat. There's probably more but I don't see them.
The wife has several plum trees in her yard, too. Sweet and juicy, but have no clue what they are. My mother took some rootstock and planted them at her place. Bad idea. Those things are probably plums but the deer won't eat them either. I'm going to start propagating them as well. So I have a question as I'm new to this fruit tree growing initiative I've undertaken. One of the trees that produced the most fruit was severely pruned and never quite recovered. Would scions from that tree propagate healthy trees and fruit? That question would apply to the pear tree as well. It had a major bumper crop last year and limbs broke off so I'd be taking scions from damaged, recovering trees.
I'd be up for a little trading, too. I'm wanting some Jonathan and Granny Smith scions. My in laws have some property my land clearing guru cleared by mistake. They didn't care so I'm gonna make as big an orchard as I can fit. Additionally,  I'd like to set scions of all sorts out along the creek near my property. Those will be for the deer, hopefully they leave my orchard alone.

I'm in southwest Georgia and have been trying to get good pears growing ever since I bought my property. I planted some that I think were called Moonglow but they have so much difficulty growing where they are that I later planted Orient pears between them.  I've had flordahome trees for years and several pineapple pears.  So far, there is one orient that produces rock hard fruit and I got just enough fruit from a pineapple and one flordahome to get an idea of what they are. The flordahome is the only one soft enough to enjoy eating fresh, but mine generally either bloom too early or not at all. I'm still in search of the right one for me but there are others that I want to try. My parents had an heirloom that grew from a cutting from my maternal grandparent's tree and they always just called it an apple pear, since the fruit was rounded. My dad gave me cuttings from that tree but that didn't result in any trees so i need to try again. Just fruits and exotics has a hood pear that sounds good.