Dallas Fruit and Vegetable Grower

Harvesting Pears

When is the best time to harvest pears?

In growing fruit, one of the things that has been a learning process fo rme has been identifying when the optimal time is to harvest my fruit.  There are different rules for different fruit.

Every year, I learn something new or accomplish something different, and this year, I am most excited about my pear harvest.

In Texas, and the South in general, our pears and apples can be vulnerable to fire blight.  Consequently, I do not grow European pears which are particularly vulnerable to fire blight.  I currently am growing fireblight resistant hybrid varieties such as Orient, Warren, Monterrey,  Moonglow, Pineapple, Kieffer, Seckle, and Magness.

When determining ripeness and harvesting pears, the books and experts suggest that you look at the color of the lenticels, the small pores in the skin, to turn from white to brown.  They also suggest that you feel for a little give in the skin.  When both of these occur, the pear should be mature and will ripen off the tree.

Frankly, I think determining ripeness from skin or lenticel color on a pear is pretty tough, and I don't think I am experienced enough to easily use that method.

Personally,I think one of the best indicators for me in determining ripeness is by lifting a fruit up toward the sky from the bottom in an arcing fashion (with the stem being the pivot point) to see how much give there is with the stem.  If it can come off easily from the stem, it should be ripe.  When harvesting, you should be able to lift the fruit upward and off -- don't twist or pull. If it doesn't come off easily from the stem, you should wait.

I kept an eye for fruit on the ground to determine when I needed to start watching the fruit more closely.  Our squirrels are very aggressive, however, so the mere fact that a pear is on the ground does not  necessarily mean the fruit is ripe in my garden.

Don't expect the fruit to be soft.  European pears are best ripened off the tree, so they don't become mealy.  They ripen from the core, out.  (In contrast, asian pears are ripened on the tree.)

Once harvested, I immediately chilled the fruit in my refrigerator.  After 2 weeks, I would select fruit as needed and leave it on the counter for 2 or 3 days for it to soften and get juicy.  It was perfect!

While keeping the pears in the refrigerator, I have been able to consume the harvest for a period of approximately six weeks.  After the pears were in the fridge for four weeks, I could eat them really almost immediately or after only a day on the counter.  After six weeks, I am getting near the end of my harvest.  I am not sure how long these fruit will remain edible, but I suspect another 2 to 4 weeks.

Summer Fruit: Peaches, Figs & Pears

The summer brought a bounty of fruit this year.

Early summer started with a good crop of blackberries.  The blackberries usually ripen in June and with three varieties, produce for three or four weeks.

Our blueberries produced a modest crop.  I had to replace approximately a third of the bushes last fall because of the heat and drought of the previous two years that had taken their toll.  I removed the drip lines that irrigated the blueberry bushes and replaced them with pop-up spray heads.  The drip lines were not reliably getting adequate moisture to the plants.  As a result of the spray heads, the bushes have done much better this year through the summer heat.

We had only a small plum harvest this year.  From seven trees, I probably only harvested 15 - 20 fruit.  There were several more on the trees, but the varmits got to them.  We had a huge crop of plums last year, and I think that caused the trees to take this year off to recuperate.

We will not get many apples this year.  The varmits really go after our apples.  They got almost all of the early ripening fruit.  However, I did harvest a couple of beautiful, small, red Williams Pride apples, which is a very early season variety.

Nevertheless, our peach crop was enormous.  That is the benefit of having a lot of different kinds of fruit trees and bushes.  Invariably, each year, certain fruits just will not produce anything.  As disappointing as that may be if you have some favorites, you are  almost guaranteed to be successful with other fruits in that same year if you have several kinds of fruit growing.

Whereas the plums were our banner "crop" last year, the peaches won the prize this year.

We have five mature peach trees and two  young trees.  The five mature trees really put on a show.  

The Jefferson, Springold, and Ranger trees are very vulnerable to varmits because the varmits can get to them easily without being seen or exposed.  Consequently, the birds, squirrels, and possums are fat this year from eating so many peaches.  However, the Sentinel and Redhaven are more exposed, and we were able to harvest the majority of their peaches before any animals got to them. 

The peaches ripened four weeks later than they have in prior years.   Dallas had late freezes this year in late March and early April, and I think this caused the later harvest.

 

The two photographs above are of the Sentinel tree.  You can see the branches weighted down by the fruit.  I  probably should have thinned the fruit earlier in the year, but I did not do it because I did not know how much of the fruit would be shared with with critters.  If we get this big of a harvest next year, I will thin the trees more. 

 

The photographs above and below are of the Redhaven tree.  One of the main branches really bowed under the weight of the fruit.  I also suspect that the weight of a climbing possum caused it to bow even more.

The photograph below really shows how prolific the trees were. 

I tend to harvest the fruit when they give a little to touch.  The Sentinel peaches below had less red blush than the Redhaven. 

 

 

Our fig trees were also very prolific.  We have five fig trees, but only two of them are very mature.  The nursery mislabelled the two mature trees, but as I have mentioned in the past, I think they are Lattarula/Italian Honey figs.  They ripened over a three to four week period in July.  When ripe, they get bright yellow and have an amber interior.  They are very sweet.  Some of them weep a milky liquid when picked, as you can see with a couple of them in the photograph below. 

 

We also had a very large pear crop.  It was a crop of impressive, huge pears.

We have four mature Orient, Warren, Monterrey, and Moonglow trees.  We also have four young Pineapple, Kieffer, Seckle, and Magness trees.

The Warren, Monterrey, and Moonglow all produced only a few  fruit, but the Orient tree was the real star of the summer.  It probably produced about fifty 10-14 ounce fruit, some of which are in the photographs below.

As with planting a lot of different types of fruit, you also benefit from planting several varieties of the same type of fruit.  In addition to helping with pollination, you never know which tree is going to have a good year.  If you increase the number of varieties in your "orchard", you increase your chances of success. 

 

 

 

Dallas Fruit Trees in Bloom - March 5, 2012

A week ago, some of my plums, pluots, and apricots were beginning to bloom, and I wrote about how I was worried that they would not be pollinated because of the lack of pollinators that had emerged from winter and because there were not enough cross-pollinating fruit trees to lend a hand.

I went out of town at the end of the week and returned to an abundance of blooms.  Also, the native bees were out in force, industriously visiting all of the blooms.  If you look very closely at the Morris plum in the photograph above, you can count at least eight bees swarming in the air around these blossoms.

A large number of our plums are now in bloom, including the Morris, the Bruce, the Santa Rosa, and the Allred.  Here is another photograph of the Morris along with a photo of the Allred in bloom seen through the still-dormant fuzzy kiwi vines and burgeoning Jefferson peach blossoms.

 

 

 

Although the Allred above has pink blossoms, our other plums have beautiful, white blossoms as you can see below. 

 

 

Our Royal Lee low-chill cherries also have lovely white blossoms as featured below.

 

 

 

 

I must say, however, that our Royal Lee and Minnie Royal trees have been very disappointing to me this spring.  We planted 5 of them last spring in 2011.  They did very well during the growing season despite the intense heat and drought, and they put on significant growth.  Nevertheless, this spring, the majority went straight to leafing out without any blossoms.   A single Royal Lee was the sole exception, producing the blossoms that you see above.   

If you look very closely at the photograph below, though, you can see that the tree has very few blossoms.  It is not clear to me why these trees did not produce more blooms.  It should not be a result of the mild winter weather because these cherry varieties should only require 200 to 300 chill hours, which we had.  It is not the result of my pruning, which was very light.  I am perplexed.

 

 

Our remaining cherry tree, the Compact Stella, has neither leafed out nor blossomed at this point.

 

In contrast, all of our peach trees have burst into bloom, or are about to do so.  Our Sentinel peach  has the greatest number of blooms followed by our Saturn.  The Springold, Ranger, Jefferson, Redhaven, and Reliance are just a bit behind the Sentinel.

 

The tree and blossoms below are of the Sentinel peach.  As you can see from at least one of these photographs, our local bee population is hard at work.

 

 

   

 

 

 

The photograph below is of Redhaven peach blossom buds that are very close to blooming.

 

 

As I mentioned a bit earlier, the Saturn peach -- also known as a Peento -- has really had a dramatic bloom this Spring.  It is still a very small tree, but the number of blooms and the striking color of the blooms have impressed me.

 

 

Our two mature apricot trees continue to flourish in bloom.  The Blenheim added more blossoms since the last photographs that I shared, and the Moorpark apricot is also now in bloom.  The first photograph is of the Blenheim and the remainder are from the Moorpark.  My guess is that I'm going to get a good set of fruit from these two --- but we'll see.

 

 

 

 

These apricot blossoms remind me somewhat of fuschia flowers with their combination of red and white coloring.  The blossoms are also somewhat akin to an apple blossom that starts pink and matures to white, but differ in that the apricot blossoms maintain the red coloration much longer.

Nearby, our Cot-N-Candy aprium has really had unusual bloom structure this year.  With the way that the blooms completely cover the branches, it almost reminds me of a delphinium flower.  You can see what I mean from the photograph below.

 

 

 

These blooms have been particularly attractive to the bees.

The apricots, apriums, and pluots are all near each other, and they are producing a heavenly scent in the air.

 

 

 

We have several Blue Velvet and Blue Pacific honeyberry bushes growing around the vegetable garden.   Although they are three years old, they are still very petite bushes.   Indigenous to northern climates, I think they may be stunted by our intense summer heat.

The photograph above is of a honeyberry blossom before it opens.  The photograph below is of opened blossoms.

Also known as blue honeysuckle, you can see the similarities between its blossoms and a honeysuckle blossom.

 

 

Our blueberry bushes have set many, many blossoms.  I love the bell shaped look of blueberry blossoms because they are so unique.

 

 

Our Nanking cherry bushes are also filling with delicate white blossoms.  These are still very young bushes, so they look rather sparse in the photographs.  Later in the year, these 8 or 9 bushes will produce white cherries which are less attractive to the birds; however, I also plan on planting two red cherry varieties to help with pollination.  Last year, although the white Nanking cherry bushes bloomed prodigiously, they did not produce any fruit.

 

Last, but not least, at least one of our pear trees is blooming.  Our Orient pear has set a fair number of blooms.   Because of the sunlight, you have to look very carefully to see the blooms in this tree, but it actually has a decent number of blooms.

 

 

We have a fair number of pear varieties growing in our yard -- Orient, Warren, Monterrey, Moonglow, Pineapple, Kiepfer, Seckle, and Magness -- however, only the Orient has bloomed this Spring.  Last year, we did not have very many blooms, either.  I am concerned that the trees may not be getting enough sunlight because they essentially have a northern exposure resulting from nearby ornamental trees and bushes.  Until these pear trees grow a little taller, they may continue to be sunlight challenged. 

Growing Pear Trees in Dallas and Texas

There seems to be a fair amount of agreement on the varieties of pear trees that you should be growing in North Texas.  Most resources recommend fireblight resistant, Oriental hybrid varieties that can be just as good as the European pears. 

Everyone seems to agree that the European pears such as Bartlett, Doyenne, Bosc, Comice, and D'Anjou do not do well in Texas because of fireblight.  This is a real shame because these varieties are excellent varieties for fresh eating with their fine, sweet, melting flesh.

Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension recommends three varieties as the best for Texas and provides the following descriptions of them:

Warren. Excellent dessert quality in both the flesh and peel with a smooth, buttery texture and small- to medium size, red-blushed fruit. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight. A seedling tree discovered in Hattisburg, Mississippi by T. O. Warren.

Ayres. Excellent dessert quality, although not as good as Warren. Medium-size fruit with a brown russet and red blush. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight.

Magness. Excellent dessert quality with medium size fruit similar to Warren. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight.

(http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/pear/pear.html; http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/fruit/pear/pear.html)

Bob Wells of Bob Wells Nursery, an East Texas nursery specializing in fruit trees and bushes, also recommends Ayers which he says is a "very sweet summer pear."  Mr. Wells also favors Orient which he says is a "large bell-shaped pear" that "ripens late summer" and is "very sweet."  He also likes LeConte which he describes as a "crisp, sweet summer pear" with "great color."

Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension also lists these same varieties, along with several others, as additional options for Texas, but claims that they are inferior to Warren, Ayres, and Magness:

Maxine. Very good dessert quality with medium to large attractive fruit. Good to fair fire blight resistance. Ripens in August-early September. Reported to be the same pear as Starking Delicious.

Moonglow. Good dessert quality with medium to large fruit that ripens in August-early September. Good fire blight resistance.

Garber. Good dessert quality with medium to large, crisp-textured, attractive fruit of a shape similar to Delicious apples. Ripens in August. Good to fair fire blight resistance. Often called apple-pear or pear-apple.

LeConte. Good dessert quality, medium-size, attractive fruit that ripens in August-early September. Fair fire blight resistance. Fan-Still, a variety propagated and sold in the San Antonio area, appears to be a LeConte seedling with similar quality and reported better fire blight resistance.

Monterrey. Good dessert quality with large fruit that ripens in August-early September. Good fire blight resistance. Propagated and sold chiefly in the San Antonio area.

Orient. Fair dessert quality, coarse textured, russetted, medium to large fruit. A consistent, heavy bearer that ripens late August-September. Highly resistant to fire blight. Used primarily for canning/baking.

Kieffer. Old standard, coarse-textured fruit that are poor to fair for dessert use but good for canning and baking. A consistent, heavy bearer that ripens late September-October, highly resistant to fire blight.

 (http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/pear/pear.html)

You will note that AgriLife's opinion differs from Mr. Wells on LeConte and Orient, but that just goes to show that the issue of taste can often be very subjective to the individual with different people preferring different taste characteristics.  

Two other varieties that you may want to consider that have been recommended for the South in other resources, are:

Seckel.  Described as a small to medium yellow russetted pear with extraordinary flavor.  The fruit is extremely sweet and very juicy with a distinctive, spicy, rich, aromatic flavor.  It is also known as the "sugar" pear which is all I needed to hear!  It is self-fertile, fireblight resistant, and requires 500 chill hours.

Pineapple.  Crisp flesh which is said to have a pineapple flavor.  It is yellow in color blushed with red.  It is also self-fruitful and fireblight resistant.  It requires approximately 150 chill hours.

Interesting, all of these suggestions seem to overlap more or less with an article in Mother Earth News which rated some of the top flavored pears as:  Magness, Kieffer, Pineapple, Seckel,  Warren, Maxine and Honeysweet.

Not previously mentioned, several other sources claim that the Potomac is also an excellent, fire-blight resistant variety introduced by the USDA in 1993 with rich buttery taste.  It's parents are D'Angou and Moonglow. 

My Pear Trees

I myself have planted the following varieties in my garden: Orient, Moonglow, Monterrey, Warren, Magness, Kieffer, Pineapple, and Seckle.

Rootstock

When selecting your trees, it is very important to look closely at the rootstock upon which the trees are grafted.  The rootstock will dictate how large the tree will get.  You do not want to plant a tree that will get too big for the space in which you are placing it.  You will be very disappointed and, along with the additional work entailed, the additional pruning to keep its size in check may adversely impact fruit production.   

 

Cross-Pollination

While several varieties listed here are self-fertile, you are going to want to plant at least two varieties of pear trees to ensure proper cross-pollination and fruit set.  Some varieties require a cross-pollinator.  Even the self-fertile varieties will set more fruit with another pollinator.  To ensure good cross-pollination, make sure that you have two varieties that will bloom around approximately the same period of time.   I have not found a thorough list of bloom times for all of these Oriental hybrid varieties, yet.  However, note that Moonglow, Seckel and Honeysweet should be good pollinators for the vast majority of these varieties, with the exception of Magness.  Magness will not be a good pollinator, because it is sterile.

 

Considerations Regarding Fireblight

Many varieties of pears, even the more resistant varieties, can be impacted by fire blight.  The best way to avoid fire blight is to not use fertilizer with a high nitrogen content.  Excessive amounts of nitrogen encourages fire blight.  If fire blight does show up, cut the infected branch off as soon as you can and destroy it.  In caring for your pear trees, I have found that the occasional spraying of Garrett Juice or compost tea seems to ward off problems for me.  Additionally, the makers of Actinovate claim that the use of their product as a foliar spray can help prevent fireblight.

 

Ideas on Nurseries

If you are looking for an instant orchard, your choices are limited.  Check now with your local nurseries to see what varieties they are or will be caring this Spring and in what sizes.  I typically only see 5 gallon containers in my local nurseries.

Bob Wells Nursery will often carry 5, 10, and 15 gallon trees, so you can try that. 

If you are a more patient person and are willing to plant a smaller tree, there are a lot of options out there.  Some of them include:

Texas Nurseries:

Bob Wells Nursery 

Womack Nursery

Cummins Nursery

Caldwell Nursery 

 Nurseries Outside of Texas

Raintree Nursery

Trees of Antiquity

One Green World

Ison's Nursery

Edible Landscaping 

Johnson Nursery

Chestnut Hill Tree Farm

Stark Brothers

Grandpa's Orchard

Bay Laurel Nursery

Big Horse Creek Farm

Kuffel Creek Apple Nursery

Cloud Mountain Farm

Burnt Ridge Nursery

Greenmantle Nursery

Southmeadow Fruit Gardens

If you have planted pear trees in Texas that are bearing fruit, please post a comment and share your experiences along with your favorite varieties for Texas.

 

Heirloom Pears

Click here for a good article on heirloom pears by Sue Weaver of Hobby Farms.

Asian pears

It was a strange year for pears.

My European pears did not bloom at all this year.  I am afraid it was because they had too much shade last year from nearby, more mature trees.  To avoid this same problem next year, I pruned those nearby trees back significantly, and the pear trees are now in full sun.   Hopefully, they will bloom much better next spring.

My asian pears fared much better.  But they also did not bloom very much, and the flowers that did bloom were isolated on a few outer branches.   I am not certain of why this happened.  I did not prune the tree that extremely this winter, so I wouldn't think that I cut off fruit spurs causing this odd blooming pattern.

I had a few fruit on the Hosui asian pear and many fruit on the Shinko asian pear.

When harvesting pears, I usually look for the color of the lenticels, the small pores in the skin, to turn from white to brown.  I will also feel for a little give in the skin.  When both of those occur, the pear should be mature and will ripen off the tree.  One of the main indicators for me is to lift the fruit up from the bottom in an arcing fashion (with the stem being the pivot point) to see how much give there is with the stem.  If it can come off easily from the stem, I usually use that as an indicator that it is ready.  When harvesting, you should be able to lift the fruit upward and off -- don't twist or pull. If it doesn't come off easily from the stem, you should wait.

Don't expect the fruit to be soft.  European pears are best ripened off the tree, so they don't become mealy. If you pick the pears when still firm, you can ripen them under refrigeration.  I like to refrigerate them for three to six weeks and then ripen at room temperature. 

Ripening Fruit Update

 

Our pome and stone fruit continue to get bigger.  In the first week of May, you can see in the photograph above that our apples are already looking fairly mature.

The photograph above is of our asian pears that are also doing well.

 

Our three types of thornless blackberries -- Navajo, Arapaho, and Oauchita -- are loaded with immature berries.  In the photograph above, you can see how the flowers turn into the berries.

The fruit on our blueberry bushes also continues to mature.  I hope plenty ripen before the birds get them all.

 

Finally, I have included a photo of some medlar blossoms that have been pollinated and are fruiting.

Bloom report for the week of March 21, 2011

Almost a week and a half has passed since my last bloom report, and a lot has happened in a short period of time.  As you can see from the photograph above, our Compact Stella Cherry has started to bloom.  There are not as many blossoms on the tree this year for some reason.  I am hoping that more blooms are going to open over the next several days; otherwise, I am going to need to investigate what changes could have resulted in fewer blooms.   This winter, we planted four Royal Lee and Minnie Royal trees from Bay Laurel Nursery.  Thsese tress went straight to leafing out without any blooms.  A photograph of the Compact Stella and one of the Royal Lees are set out below:

  Compact Stella beginning to bloom

 

Royal Lee transplant in 1st year

As with my cherries, my pear trees and asian pear trees did not produce very many blossoms this spring.  Rather, they primarily went straight into leafing out with only a few blossoms.  I do not think this was the result of overpruning, but I will do some research and speculating, and then I'll report back why I think this happened.  Nevertheless, my Magness pear has produced beautiful blooms.  Similarly, the few blooms on my asian pears, Hosui and Shinko, are also lovely.

 

Magness pear

 

Shinko asian pear

 

 Some of my apple trees started to bloom this past week.  Particularly, my Anna, Granny Smith, and Fuji have started to bloom.  The photograph below is from the Anna.

 

 

Here are some early buds on the Granny Smith:

My other apple varieties have not started to flower yet, including the: Gala, Braeburn, William's Pride, Wynooche Early, Spigold, Cox Orange Pippen, and Goldrush.  I do not expect the six new apple trees that I planted this winter to flower: Mutsu/Crispin, Esopus Spitzenberg, Newtown Pippin, Calville Blanc d'Hiver, Rubinette, and Ashmead's Kernel.

Growing Pear Trees in Dallas and Texas

There seems to be a fair amount of agreement on the varieties of pear trees that you should be growing in North Texas.  Most resources recommend fireblight resistant, Oriental hybrid varieties that can be just as good as the European pears. 

Everyone seems to agree that the European pears such as Bartlett, Doyenne, Bosc, Comice, and D'Anjou do not do well in Texas because of fireblight.  This is a real shame because these varieties are excellent varieties for fresh eating with their fine, sweet, melting flesh.

Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension recommends three varieties as the best for Texas and provides the following descriptions of them:

Warren. Excellent dessert quality in both the flesh and peel with a smooth, buttery texture and small- to medium size, red-blushed fruit. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight. A seedling tree discovered in Hattisburg, Mississippi by T. O. Warren.

Ayres. Excellent dessert quality, although not as good as Warren. Medium-size fruit with a brown russet and red blush. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight.

Magness. Excellent dessert quality with medium size fruit similar to Warren. Ripens in August. Highly resistant to fire blight.

(http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/pear/pear.html; http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/fruit/pear/pear.html)

Bob Wells of Bob Wells Nursery, an East Texas nursery specializing in fruit trees and bushes, also recommends Ayers which he says is a "very sweet summer pear."  Mr. Wells also favors Orient which he says is a "large bell-shaped pear" that "ripens late summer" and is "very sweet."  He also likes LeConte which he describes as a "crisp, sweet summer pear" with "great color."

Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension also lists these same varieties, along with several others, as additional options for Texas, but claims that they are inferior to Warren, Ayres, and Magness:

Maxine. Very good dessert quality with medium to large attractive fruit. Good to fair fire blight resistance. Ripens in August-early September. Reported to be the same pear as Starking Delicious.

Moonglow. Good dessert quality with medium to large fruit that ripens in August-early September. Good fire blight resistance.

Garber. Good dessert quality with medium to large, crisp-textured, attractive fruit of a shape similar to Delicious apples. Ripens in August. Good to fair fire blight resistance. Often called apple-pear or pear-apple.

LeConte. Good dessert quality, medium-size, attractive fruit that ripens in August-early September. Fair fire blight resistance. Fan-Still, a variety propagated and sold in the San Antonio area, appears to be a LeConte seedling with similar quality and reported better fire blight resistance.

Monterrey. Good dessert quality with large fruit that ripens in August-early September. Good fire blight resistance. Propagated and sold chiefly in the San Antonio area.

Orient. Fair dessert quality, coarse textured, russetted, medium to large fruit. A consistent, heavy bearer that ripens late August-September. Highly resistant to fire blight. Used primarily for canning/baking.

Kieffer. Old standard, coarse-textured fruit that are poor to fair for dessert use but good for canning and baking. A consistent, heavy bearer that ripens late September-October, highly resistant to fire blight.

 (http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/homefruit/pear/pear.html)

You will note that AgriLife's opinion differs from Mr. Wells on LeConte and Orient, but that just goes to show that the issue of taste can often be very subjective to the individual with different people preferring different taste characteristics.  

Two other varieties that you may want to consider that have been recommended for the South in other resources, are:

Seckel.  Described as a small to medium yellow russetted pear with extraordinary flavor.  The fruit is extremely sweet and very juicy with a distinctive, spicy, rich, aromatic flavor.  It is also known as the "sugar" pear which is all I needed to hear!  It is self-fertile, fireblight resistant, and requires 500 chill hours.

Pineapple.  Crisp flesh which is said to have a pineapple flavor.  It is yellow in color blushed with red.  It is also self-fruitful and fireblight resistant.  It requires approximately 150 chill hours.

Interesting, all of these suggestions seem to overlap more or less with an article in Mother Earth News which rated some of the top flavored pears as:  Magness, Kieffer, Pineapple,  Seckel, Warren, Maxine and Honeysweet.

Not previously mentioned, several other sources claim that the Potomac is also an excellent, fire-blight resistant variety introduced by the USDA in 1993 with rich buttery taste.  It's parents are D'Angou and Moonglow. 

My Pear Trees

I myself have planted the following varieties in my garden: Orient, Moonglow, Monterrey, Warren, Magness, Kieffer, Pineapple, and Seckle.

Rootstock

When selecting your trees, it is very important to look closely at the rootstock upon which the trees are grafted.  The rootstock will dictate how large the tree will get.  You do not want to plant a tree that will get too big for the space in which you are placing it.  You will be very disappointed and, along with the additional work entailed, the additional pruning to keep its size in check may adversely impact fruit production.   

 

Cross-Pollination

While several varieties lsited here are self-fertile, you are going to want to plant at least two varieties of pear trees to ensure proper cross-pollination and fruit set.  Some varieties require a cross-pollinator.  Even the self-fertile varieties will set more fruit with another pollinator.  To ensure good cross-pollination, make sure that you have two varieties that will bloom around approximately the same period of time.   I have not found a thorough list of bloom times for all of these Oriental hybrid varieties, yet.  However, note that Moonglow, Seckel and Honeysweetshould be good pollinators for the vast majority of these varieties, with the exception of Magness.  Magness will not be a good pollinator, because it is sterile.

 

Considerations Regarding Fireblight

Many varieties of pears, even the more resistant varieties, can be impacted by fire blight.  The best way to avoid fire blight is to not use fertilizer with a high nitrogen content.  Excessive amounts of nitrogen encourages fire blight.  If fire blight does show up, cut the infected branch off as soon as you can and destroy it.  In caring for your pear trees, I have found that the occasional spraying of Garrett Juice or compost tea seems to ward off problems for me.  Additionally, the makers of Actinovate claim that the use of their product as a foliar spray can help prevent fireblight.

 

Ideas on Nurseries

If you are looking for an instant orchard, your choices are limited.  Check now with your local nurseries to see what varieties they are or will be caring this Spring and in what sizes.  I typically only see 5 gallon containers in my local nurseries.

Bob Wells Nursery will often carry 5, 10, and 15 gallon trees, so you can try that. 

 

Willis Orchard Company sells large trees; however be forewarned that these are going to be bare-rooted plants which can sometimes demand more TLC.   (I no longer recommend using this company as I have now discovered that they sent me several fruit trees that were completely different varieties.  For example, they sent me standard pears instead of the asian pears I ordered!!)

Edible Landscaping also sometimes carries larger sized specimen.

If you are a more patient person and are willing to plant a smaller tree, there are a lot of options out there.  Some of them include:

Texas Nurseries:

Bob Wells Nursery 

Womack Nursery

Cummins Nursery

Caldwell Nursery 

 Nurseries Outside of Texas

Raintree Nursery

Trees of Antiquity

One Green World

Ison's Nursery

Johnson Nursery

Chestnut Hill Tree Farm

Stark Brothers

Grandpa's Orchard

Bay Laurel Nursery

Big Horse Creek Farm

Kuffel Creek Apple Nursery

Cloud Mountain Farm

Burnt Ridge Nursery

Greenmantle Nursery

Southmeadow Fruit Gardens

If you have planted pear trees in Texas that are bearing fruit, please post a comment and share your experiences along with your favorite varieties for Texas.

List of fruits and varieties

Here is a list of the fruit that we have planted in 2009 and 2010:

Apple                            Gala

                                      Fuji

                                      Granny Smith              

                                      Braeburn      

                                      Anna            

                                      Cox's Orange Pippen  

                                      Goldrush      

                                      Spigold       

                                      Wynooche   

                                      William's Pride

                                     

Pears                             Orient          

                                      Moonglow    

                                      Monterrey    

                                      Warren         

                                      Magness      

                                      Kieffer         

                                      Pineapple    

                                      Seckle

                                     

Peaches                         Springold     

                                      Sentinel       

                                      Ranger         

                                      Red Haven   

                                      Jefferson     

                                      Saturn          

                                      Reliance       

                                     

Plums                            Santa Rosa  

                                      Bruce           

                                      Allred           

                                      Morris          

                                      AU Rosa      

                                      Shiro           

                                      Toka

                                     

Cherry                            Bing            

                                      Black Tartarian            

                                      Compact Stella

                                     

Apricot                           Blenheim      

                                      Moorpark

                                     

Asian Pear                     Hosui           

                                      Shinko

                                     

Jujube                            Li  

                                      Lang

                                     

Fig                                 Brown Turkey              

                                      Celestial       

                                      Texas Everbearing       

                                      LSU Purple  

                                      Black Mission        

    

Blueberry                       Tifblue         

                                      Woodard     

                                      Brightwell

                                     

Elderberry                      John's         

                                      Adam's

                                     

Blackberry                      Arapaho thornless       

                                      Ouachita thornless       

                                      Navajo thornless

                                     

Raspberry                      Autumn Bliss

                                      Heritage

                                     

Grape                             Himrod white seedless 

                                      Mars blue seedless     

                                      Saturn seedless          

                                      Ruby seedless            

                                      Chardonney

                                     

Strawberry                     Ozark Beauty              

                                      Quinault       

                                      Ogallala       

                                      Tristar          

                                      Eversweet    

                                      Seascape    

                                      Allstar          

                                      Itasca          

                                      Jewel           

                                      Lateglow      

                                      Earliglow      

                                      Profumata di tortona   

                                      Mignonette alpine        

                                      Rugen alpine

                                      Yellow alpine

                                     

Cornellian Cherry           Elegant        

                                      Pioneer

                                     

Che                                Seedless Che

                                     

Nanking Cherry              White Nanking Cherry

 

Medlar                            Dutch medlar              

                                      Royal medlar

                                     

Pomegranite                  Eversweet

                                     

Persimmon                    Fuyu            

                                      Tani Nashi

                                     

Paw paw                        Mango         

                                      Pennsylvania Golden   

                                      NC1

                                     

Kiwi                               Ananasnaja  

                                      Dumbarten Oaks         

                                      Jumbo Hardy              

                                      Ken's Red    

                                      Saanichton   

                                      Exbury         

                                      Hayward      

                                      Kolomitka

                                     

Pineapple Guava           Pineapple Guava

                                     

Luma Apiculata              Luma Apiculata

                                     

Honeyberry                    Kamchatka   

                                      Blue velvet   

                                      Blue pacific

                                     

Juneberry                       Northline serviceberry

                                     

Jostaberry                      Jostaberry

                                     

Gooseberry                    Poorman

                                     

Shipova                         Shipova

                                     

Hybrids                          Pluot combination of Splash, Emerald Drop, Flavor Grenade, and Geo Pride           

                                      Tri Lite peach plum      

                                      Cot-N-Candy Aprium    

                                      Flavor Supreme Pluot  

                                      Spice Zee Nectaplum

                                     

Wolfberry                       Wolfberry

                                     

Huckleberry                    Evergreen huckleberry

                                     

Mulberry                        2 existing Mulberry trees -- type unknown   

                                         Noir De Spain mulberry