I forgot to mention Tyson, which had good flavor at a time when I've very little interest in pears. You need to pick this one before it gets over ripe which happens quickly in the heat of early August here.

Bella de Guigno-moderate growth so maybe a taste next season

Hamese- too young to crop but vigorous growing

Shinseiki- this is a mid August ripening pear. Always reliable, juicy sweet and refreshing. My favorite pear.

Green Jade- aka 'Crisp-n-sweet' from Gurneys. This Pear came from Perdue U. and in its first bearing season I like it a lot. The pears are all huge size, shaped like Euro but eat like an asian. The flesh is pure white, thin skinned, with a asian texture and part euro taste. Whats more is that I let some ripen on the counter and they soften buttery into a euro pear. Everyone should grow one of these. Good fireblight resistance in the patent report

Flemish Beauty-this tree hasn't set fruit in a few years. The trunk is like five inches in diameter. I grafted in 20 varieties so there should be no excuse next season.

Bartlett- there was a big dent in many pears, don't know yet what it is. They are in the basement fridge till later. My apples are extraordinary this season. There is a second bloom and little pears that get froze out but are they pollinated. I'll check out the seeds in a month.

Atlantic Queen- still waiting on a crop

Ambrosia- I had a few of these when the tree was smaller. I think this may be the best euro pear but I'll wait for a good crop to tell for sure. Nice Russet color and very fine taste.

Olympic- I overcropped and the sugar and size were down but still good eating for the winter. Y Jackets mined many.

Comice- first crop and they are still in the fridge.

Omg!! you have a lot of diffrent variety of pears. i have spent a fortune on apples trees and pear trees and most of them were killed (deer horning them or dry weather) i have the moon glow and Bartlett and one that was suppose to be keffler but it is round and looks more like a asian pear and very sweet. thanks Home Depot hahaha i know you take a chance buying trees from these big discount stores. any way thanks to the deer i have hundreds of pear trees comming up all around our pasture. Well i have always been real good at propagation and i decided to try to graft a few and all are doing great. This year i am going to graft a lot more and was wondering if you knew where i could buy scion wood to graft with or would be willing to sell some limbs off of your trees when they go dormant. i dont have much to trade with except i do have a lot of diffrent variety of figs. If any one have great pear trees or knows of a source i would be very appreciative. thanks rickypoore@yahoo.com

Harvestman do you use any preventive measures for fireblight? Scott mentioned using Copper in the spring presumably before bud break. I have Bosc, Seckel, Comice and Winter Nellis all showing black tips on the leaves (fireblight?). The affected leaves are spread out here and there over the tree so cutting them out wouldn't leave much.
Dan

Fire blight IME involves at least entire small shoots and sometimes whole branches dying seemingly overnight. Here in southeastern NY I actually see it more on apples than pears but only Bosc pears at several sites have lost entire scaffold branches. So I've never had enough incentive to either add a strep regimen to my spray sched or even use Apogee. The organic methods usually involve Serenade or Bloomtime Biological FD (whatever that is).

I had a lot of shoot blight on apples this year which I've never gotten a good explanation of why. The specialists suggest the shootblight is introduced but unnoticable early by bees to flowers, but I don't believe that because sometimes young unflowering trees are affected.

From The hills of Southwestern Virginia elevation 2000 feet.

My pears were a disapointment for me this year in that my best two trees had a very low set. I also had a lot of damage from CM which I've never had before. I didn't spray, but didn't see the damage until the fruit started getting ripe.

Hamese- my earliest pear was new this year. Just a few to taste. They were medium sized, quite aromatic for an asian pear, but rather mealy. I may have left them on too long.

Chojuro- Smaller than usual this year and there was a low fruit set. They had good strong flavor as usual.

Hosui- Some sized up better than usual maybe because of low fruit set. I think the hot weather actually improved the flavor as they were as sweet and tasty as the chojuro but larger. There was a good bit of watercoring which I hadn't seen before, but it didn't detract at all from the taste.

Twentieth Century (Nijiseiki)-pretty much a failure--the few that set cracked like dried mud.

Shinseiki- these were very good this year. Flavor like TC but much larger and no cracking.

Korean Giant- Great flavor and large-unfortunately a lot of CM damage, so I couldn't store them even if I had enough to do so.

Shinko-Nearly tasteless. This must be good somewhere but apparently not here.

Ya Li- Pretty, pear shaped pears but not particulary sweet and little flavor. These may have not fully ripened. Only a handful to try.

Yongi-Just a couple of fruits. A lot like chojuro but quite small. May not be representative since the graft is small.

Moonglow- These fooled me; they were ready early because of the heat so I got to many of them too late. Most ended up canned. OK flavor; the skin is thick and tough here.

Maxine- first time to get any fruit (just One) It was relatively small and somewhat rounded. Very good fresh eating.

Unknown Euro- grafted this a couple of years ago from an aquaintance who had this in her front yard when she moved into her house several years ago. It was probably planted by the first homeowner (she's the third), and no one here knows what it is. Her neighbors told her it's the best pear in the county. Looks a lot like a barlett but is picked ripe from the tree like an asian and has a slight crunch. Perhaps a euro-asian hybrid? The flavor is mild, like a europen, and very good.

CM is the bain of my Asian pears. This year we seem to have had a second generation for the first time and almost every one of my Korean Giants has at least some damage- too bad to because they would have made wonderful gifts. Most years many don't quite completely ripen here- this year they're all beautifully golden and sweet as good melons.

CM is also a huge issue with many of my russet apple varieties. I may give up on Hudson's Golden Gem altogether as this one seems to get ruined by a combination of CM, bees and other pests every year.

My issues occur within a 2 Imidan spray program and a lot of my fruit flourishes, including all Euro pears and Jap. plums and most varieties of apples and Euro plums that I've tried to grow. However the CM issue seems to be getting increasingly bad so I may have to deal with this next year with another spray or 2.

I believe we got a second gen of CM because of the long, hot growing season.

My pears were so bad this year its hardly worth reporting. I didn't control the blister mites well enough and they disfigured the asian pears horribly (I didn't know they could do that until this year). What was left then got damaged by first too hot and dry and then too hot and wet weather. I did get a couple European pears, but there were few enough that the squirrels etc took care of nearly all of them. Dave, I agree on Shinko, its garbage for me as well. I did get a couple Koyama, a variety I got from Lon Rombough, and it was boring. My reliable Fondante des Moulins-Lille produced some great pears like it does every year. My Passe Crassane all dropped too early, or maybe the squirrels were knocking them off.

Scott

IME squirrels don't knock off fruit and leave it- crows do (I've watched them do it to Asians). Of course your squirrels may behave differently.

I need to update the evaluation I gave on Highland. I've had a couple very large ones out of proper storage in the last few days and they were absolutely Comice in quality.

Luscious, dripping juice with a nice pear bouquet. In full sun, properly thinned they may be well worth growing. I guess Cornell wouldn't have released it if it was a total loser.

However this is the first year they've tasted nearly so good as harvested on my property. I lose the early and late sun to the forest that borders my orchard. Other pears I grow here have less trouble getting up good sugar.

Pokeberry just wanted to say hi!!! i looked at your profile and found out that we live close to each other. i also seen where you aked for help and you have received no response to your question. well i dont graft but my husband does and i asked him where was a goog place to buy scionwood and he gave me this link http://wagonwheelorchard.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html i hope this will help you "Kim" p.s. drop me a email we have a few pear trees here on our farm that are very good pears and i have a neighbor that collects diffrent kinds of fruit trees i will ask him what kind he has

Took Harrow Sweet out of the fridge today for the first time this season. Note that I'm in love w/ Bartlett for its sweetness, juiciness, and fragrance.

However, this year (second year) Harrow Sweet was better. The skin was tougher, but I peel them anyway. Flesh was very sweet (sweeter than Bartlett) but not the high fructose corn sweetness of Seckel. HS had a nice balance. I ended up eating three of them.

The best thing about HS was the texture. Firm and juicy. I'd describe it as rubbery, but for most folks that invokes a petro-chemical description. Forget that. It had a beautiful texture. Just enough firmness to be satisfying, but not so soft to be mushy. Just right.

I'm with you on HS. It is also precocious (by pear standards), seems psyla resistant and has a real nice spreading growth habit for a pear. I wonder why it is not more widely planted. I discovered it in my nursery by accident when a tree had some ripe fruit on it and I planted it in my orchard as soon as it went dormant.

As soon as I can get some good wood for grafting from it I will put it into a lot of other pears in my nursery. I transplanted it BR last fall and I left a few pears on it so there isn't much new wood I can remove for grafting this winter although it grew pretty well, considering.

Here, it is also one of those pears where the tree ripened fruit have good quality.

Not the best year for Asians. It froze as they were in bloom, so a smaller than usual crop.

There was a lot of cracking damage to the Shinseiki, but the undamaged pears were crisp and sweet.

Hosui had very few pears. The pears were larger than usual. Skin on Hosui is a bit tough and rough, but the flavor of the pear is quite good.

Europeans gave heavy crops this year. They have enough sense to bloom after the worst of the freezes.

The Seckels are just flat out delicious. Good flavor, tender skin, and a lovely smooth texture.

Bartlet were good, but nobody ate them as long as Seckels were available.

Bosc pears are fat and have been picked, but they will need to ripen. I love the Bosc flavor. Bosc texture is courser grained. A big plus is that they are late, so extend the fruit season.

Seckel is too tender to be much of a cooking pear, but Seckel, butter, and brown sugar is a magic flavor combination. So I bake the Seckels with just a light crisp or Dutch crumb topping so the topping is done as soon as the pears are cooked. Left in the oven too long, and you've got pear sauce.