Not for harrow s.. It's very precocious although your tree would probably reject the fruit even if you don't remove it. You certainly don't want such a small tree producing pears yet.

It's amazing how precocious it is. I have experienced the same thing with my 2' trees!

Mine, too. I planted last spring, Harrow Sweet and Blake's Pride. HS has a few clusters of flowers and now is at petal fall. If the tree does not reject the fruit in a week, I'll remove them (reluctantly, of course). Mine is a 3 1/2" tall whip.

In the mean time, BP, has no flowers, just leaves. Both have pear blister mites (some). It's rained or been windy since I bought wettable sulfur. I'll spray when the wind calm down and it stops raining, hopefully soon.

I just planted a Harrow Sweet (OHxF 87 from Cummins) this spring and it has 2 blossom clusters. It was helpful, as it was the only euro I had bloom to pollinate a 2nd year Harrow Delight (which was covered in bloom, but just under 4' tall). I've already thinned both trees, but will probably thin further, down to 1 on the Harrow Sweet and 4-5 on the Harrow Delight (though this may be a bit greedy), to get a small sample.

Here's a pic of the Harrow Delight (2nd leaf on Quince rootstock).

I think the Harrow station in Canada has done a great job breeding pear varieties. I bet Harrow Sweet becomes a very significant pear if it performs elsewhere like it seems to perform here- I first started growing it about 8 years ago but only started paying attention to it 4 seasons back when I picked off a piece of fruit from one of my nursery trees. It was in early Oct- the pear was tree-ripe and delicious.

Perfect time for pears to me and I put that tree in my own orchard and it's been my most reliable producer since. Later pears also seem to be less attractive to squirrels.

Harrow Sweet is amazingly productive. I let Bartlett and Harrow Sweet overbear last year. The quality of the fruit was down on both.

However, Bartlett had a very light flowering/fruit set this year from the heavy crop last year, whereas Harrow Sweet has more fruit set than ever.

My 2nd year Harrow Sweet also is bearing fruit. I will thin out nearly all of them. Boy is this variety precocious! Many pears take a long time to fruit, I don't know why the few highly precocious ones are not more popular. Fondante des Moulins-Lille is another highly precocious variety and its quite obscure.

Scott

I don't know why it is not more widely known which pears are precocious. It is so important but more attention is put on apples in this regard.

Fruit in 2 years! Yes, thats what i like! I planted a harrow Sweet (Grandpa's, OHF97) last month.

Speaking of the Fondante des Moulins-Lille, the 18" tree planted this winter was covered in blooms in April. No fruit developed, but no fireblight either.

I planted a potted Fondante de Moulins Lille on quince (Tierra Madre) last spring which had flowers on it when it arrived. But, after a year in the ground, it seems to have gone back to vegetative growth and did not bloom.

I think seedling tends to plug in quicker than any of the OHXF rootstocks I've tried (mostly 97). Guess that's why seedling is more popular with commercial growers around here.

Bhawkins,

My Harrow Sweet is on OHxF97, too (from Schlach's).

Come to think of it, it's fruited in one year. I planted it April 2012. By April, 2013, it's bloomed. Faster than any fruit tree I have. (I think one of my dwarf William's Pride fruited in the second season, too, but with one cluster of flowers.)

HS produced 8 clusters of flowers. I thinned most of them off (some fell off by themselves). I left 7-8 on the trees for now but have planned to thin more in a week or two. I'll like to pick a couple of fruit at the end of the season. It's still very young tree. Don't want to stunt its growth..

Next year it'll be your turn to be amazed by its precociousness.

The big question in Dallas will be fireblight. Texas A&M only recommends Moonglow, Keiffer, Orient, Magness, Shinko, & Shin Li for here; they dont recommend Ayers, Maxine, or Hosui.

But according to the Harrow Research station, all Harrow pears have fireblight resistance equal to or better than Keiffer. Of course that's in Canada

At least I wont have to wait long to find out.