I've heard of Savignac Konrad but can't help out with any decision making. The soils of in the east are much different than in the west so I imagine each plant will perform differently.

The problem I had is every retailer rated the pears at a different zone. This retailer has higher heat zones and I suspect is more honest where the limits of the plants are. The other thing I noticed is when moving trees developed in the east to the west you can add one to two weeks of ripening time at the end because of a lack of heat units. This meant pushing mid September fruits towards the end of the month or into October.

What drew me to pears is they are my favourite fruit and they can be pulled off the tree to ripen which is a useful feature to cold climate ripening. Another challenge is pears aren't dwarfed to the degree apples are so you are usually planting very large trees which explains why pears are not as popular as apples inside cities. Since you are selecting for hardiness I'd ask the retailer which of the two rootstocks offers the best winter protection. My money is on the larger rootstock.

I say go for it! This one has me excited to see the results.

I don't have any input for the pears you listed , I planted a seed from a B.C. Bartlett pear and it has survived 3 winters, this winter it will most likely be exposed to full winter weather as it has grown well this year and is getting a chance to harden off. I also planted seeds from a local tree that has small 2.5" tall yellow fruit that I can't seem to get to ripen well. They may just be good for canning or cooking. The tree itself looks nice and is about 20' tall.

Thank you all!
I'm just in the lookout for some scion wood, no hurry. My interest lately is more in pears and plums because they're not readily grown here, apples you see everywhere!

This picture from yesterday, little Golden Spice took in from the shed with some Anjou, [Anjou not fully hardy]. Picked about a month ago and keep another month in the fridge. Anjou is already beyond ripe,..starting to brown in the center.

OK...I found Hudar Pear from a friend in BC.

I was wondering, have you tried Paul's pear from the Saskatoon Farm Konrad? I hear it is a larger pear.

I have tried planting Hudar about three different times, but the trees have always died out for some reason. So I'm not sure if hardiness is as good as advertised. Or maybe it's just something unique to this area.

I have a Parker in the ground now, going on year 4. I can't really give you a report on it yet.

I am excited about a variety I have that has begun bearing fruit. It is called Patten. It is supposed to be hardier than Parker, and more resistant to fireblight. It produces large fruit. I harvested near the end of September, and let it finish inside for I think about 2 weeks. Very good eating.

I also have an Early Gold pear. It's an offspring of Ure, I think. The tree seems to be hardy, but the fruit are small (I have only harvested a few so far) and I haven't been all that impressed with them.

My Golden Spice is bearing large crops, very productive. We made a lot of jelly from it last year, which was very good.

I also have Summercrisp, which we like a lot for just eating. It has a milder taste, and eats more like an Asian pear. They will keep for about a month and a half in the fridge.

I wish I could help you with scionwood, but I live in Montana.

This post was edited by ziggro on Wed, Nov 5, 14 at 19:44

Thank you Ziggro!
Summercrisp is not hardy for me,..got it about 10 years and keeps freezing back, never had fruits.

Have grafted Patten last year.

A friend in Edmonton told me this...

Parker is not as hardy or as good as Patten according to friends in the USA who have grown both. I have Patten. No point in getting an inferior pear that isnâÂÂt as hardy.
Savignac I have grafted on my backyard tree. There are two Savignacs apparently and I have âÂÂround vertâ âÂÂround greenâ the best tasting one. From Quebec zone 4.
Stacey, have heard of it but donâÂÂt have it. DoesnâÂÂt sound too good as small pears are a dime a dozen.
Hudar I think is from zone 4/5 in New York State. I had it grafted years ago. Topworked. It died the winter we got -40C about 7 or 8 years ago on my friends pear tree

This post was edited by konrad___far_north on Wed, Nov 5, 14 at 21:56

I think you will really like Patten. I'm planning to plant another one of them. I was worried that they wouldn't do well, since we are in a short-summer area. But I just picked them late in Sept., before a hard freeze hit, and they ripened up just fine inside. My family loved them.

Good to know,..actually, the graft was this year, not last, so it will be a while for fruits, something to look forward to is a good thing.

Does Patten ripen before Golden Spice for you, my Golden Spice JUST ripens at the end of season, which is around mid to end of Sept. The hard frost we had in the first week didn't effect them too much.

ziggro, looks like you got used to Golden Spice and Summercrisp, 4 years ago you didn't like them too much, according to another thread. Sometimes it takes some years to find out more about them, ..like when to pick, storing etc.

Going to bump this back up to the top.

First of all, thanks again Konrad for all the scion wood this spring. I had 95%+ success rate grafting. My first attempts ever and this only with an exacto knife, parafin wrap and black electrical tape. Tried a bunch of different techniques with no different success rates but plain old clefts and whip and tongue were the easiest.

Would you mind updated us on your pear experience this fall? Next spring I want to add more grafts and would love to hear how your pears are going. Thinking of:

Savignac

Summercrisp

Patten

Seckel

Julienne

Krazulya

Harrow's Delight

Aiming for fresh eating, keepers, and canning. Ideally disease resistant, in particular fireblight. Also as little grit as possible.

Some interesting comments on someones experience with the hardy russian pears I came across.

‎Bernie Nikolai‎ to NAFEX

August 30 at 9:21pm ·

Its good to connect with my NAFEX friends again, after a few years of not getting the publication. I live in central Alberta, zone 3, and zone 2 in a test winter. My coldest at my hobby orchard a few years ago was -43C, or about -46F. Needless to say my 300 test fruit trees are among the hardiest on the planet, or they don't survive.

Recently I have gotten into hardy pears big time. The normal hardy pears such as Luscious, Summercrisp, even Ure are simply not hardy enough for me, and die at my orchard. Some like Early Gold and Golden Spice are hardy enough, but lack size and quality. However most folks are not aware of the Russian pear breeding programs, that have been breeding hardy and tasty pears for over 60 years continually. These pears have only very recently made it to this side of the pond, and are being sold in a few artisan nurseries in Canada.

I thought I'd make a few comments of the fruit I'm just now starting to get on my trees, with some photos...

The first photo is Vekovaya Pear (means Century in Russian). This is very large, up to 400 grams, pear shaped, and good taste.

The second photo is Krazulya (means Beauty in Russian). This is a very good tasting pear, but small, only about 80 - 100 grams, and it does not keep past a week or two. But truly excellent taste when ripe in early to mid August. You can eat it off the tree, rare for pears, and no storage is needed.

Third photo is Bolshaya (means Large in Russian). This is round like an apple, and good tasting and crisp. It is large as the name suggests, well over 200 grams. First year fruiting for me, and when a friend tasted it last week, he said "wow, the Honeycrisp of pears!" referring to the texture..

Fourth photo is the best so far in my opinion, Krasnobokaya (means Red on the Sunny side in Russian). Full sized, and as good or better tasting than any supermarket pear from what I can see. It has survived -48.3C above the snowline in a test winter in Russian conditions.

None of these pears has even shown tip damage after a winter of -41.3C. To me they are far hardier and much tastier than any other hardy pears normally planted. They are also basically immune to fireblight due to the Ussurienses ancestry and I have never seen this disease on any of them, and I live in a bad fireblight area (the Canadian prairies). I have several other pear varieties I am testing, but they are a few years from fruiting yet. Also its experimentation to determine when to pick them, how to store them and for how long and at what temperature to maximize taste and storage. Its a fun hobby.

These are generally F4 crosses that have taken decades to produce. The Canadian hardy pears are all F1 crosses with Siberian pear, which generally only produces a very tart, almost inedible fruit. The Russians have found you need at least an F3 cross to get size, quality, and hardiness, but this takes decades of breeding, and nobody in North America had the time or interest to attempt this.

Some more info can be found here on page 4:

http://www.apfga.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Volume_18_Number_3.pdf

Very interesting, but where can we get these?

Krazulya, Larinskaya, Vekovaya on Pyrus ussuriensis

http://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/pear-tree

From the article they are simply growing their own seedling rootstock from Siberian pear seeds (which is Pyrus ussuriensis). Not sure if hardyfruittrees rootstock is from zone 2 pears so you might be better off growing your own rootstock and then grafting but you could always try buying 1-2 trees and gaining a couple years head start.

The others I guess you need to beg scion wood from someone who has them (something I have already done to try and get for 2017). If I can actually get some and it survives grafting you can PM me fall 2017 and if I have some wood I can share.

I have found some of these Russian Pears courtesy of Konrad. On further research some sites suggest that pears cannot be grafted onto Pyrus Ussuriensis which is the rootstock I have ordered. The suggestion is that pears should be on saskatoons, hawthorn, cottoneaster, or mountain ash. Is this right?

No...Siberian Pear — Pyrus ussuriensis is all what mine are on, some over 15 years, 15 foot tall.

Others you mention are dwarfing, get fruit sooner but not long lived.

Hardyfruittrees.ca grafts them all to Pyrus ussuriensis.

Here is info from Bernie who has been a wealth of info to me:

You can also convert any apple tree to pear by grafting an inter stem of
Winter Banana apple to the apple tree, then a pear to the Winter Banana.
I have several pear branches on apple trees and they are doing awesome with a
Winter Banana inter stem. The problem is Winter Banana is a zone5
or at best zone 4 apple, so if it dies, there go all the pears grafted to
it. Palmetta is a Russian apple hardy to -45C that is supposed to also
take pear grafts....

....But the pears
seem to almost do better on apple trees with an inter stem than they do
grafted onto pears!. And no problem with any Siberian pear onto European
pears. The European ones are not very hardy and very prone to
fireblight, unlike the Russian ones which seem to be immune to
fireblight.

Most Bernie's winterbanana interstem failed due to not hardy for our zone, Palmetta should be allot better.

Palmetta apple, grafted to a pear tree. I don't intend to use it much for apple interstem since I have enough pear trees.

Yes, Palmetta is fully hardy here in Fairbanks. I've got some grafted to P. ussuriensis; seems to be compatible so far after a couple years.

Yes, and so has my Palmetta on my 2 asian pear and the asian x pyrus for much longer. Had fruit from same fruit as Konrad's picture but having apples the last "3 years". ("+2 years" -means so far I was the first to try)

All other apple scions (about 6) of other types that were done on the hybrid pear since petered out to nothing but still linger to life for most of them. Palmetta would be a great companion for northern areas! :)

I decided to graft over some Sept. Ruby apples, [too many] to pear trees using Palmetta interstem. For a start Beedle, has proven to be a very good pear for zone 2-3, flowers are frost hardy...sets fruit when others fail, I haven't decided which would be my #2 pick.

I am looking forward to seeing if my Beedle has survived the winter. The scion was very vigorous last summer. Sometimes, it seems like the scions that grow the fastest actually have a little more die back. They settle down the second year.

Yes...same here..I transplanted a Beedle fairly large and I was prepared for it to die but it pulled through..started to grow late and some tender wood going into winter....will see.

Konrad: I am in Beaumont for breakfast and refreshing my car with things from Canadian tire with a nice yellow brand new generator strapped and running on my roof. The alcan had been hard on me and my car. Too cold and mo replacement alternators in any city. I will find your library and wait meeting others you know too in the morning.

I am glad to see so many good things come from palmetta apple with pear interstem grafting. As another plan this year I am using new baby siberian pear with apple and pal/interstem. This will double check your pictured results of palmetta if I can duplicate larger than normal apples. Such as what had been also produced size differences elsewhere around Edmonton using Parkland on another root (ie. weebly site).

Check your email.

Konrad: I was wondering about your Anjou pear experience. Back in 2014 you had some, but I was wondering if you continue to have Anjou's, are they hardy for our zone?

Hey, anybody have experience with Jeffries Nurseries new release? Ure X John, and supposedly hardy to zone 2:

PRAIRIE WELCOME PEAR Pyrus x ‘Jefwel’ PARENTAGE: ‘Ure’ x ‘John’ FRUIT COLOUR: Greenish yellow FRUIT SIZE: 6 cm EXPOSURE / HARDINESS:  Zone 2 New listing for 2019. Prairie Welcome shows good growth, healthy foliage and upright form. Its fruit ripens in early September and is larger than ‘Ure’. Excellent for preserves.

The Russian pears came through winter fine except where a rabbit did some damage, I will need to prune them up anyway. There are much better pear varieties out there than any cross between Ure x John would conceive.

Isn't John Pear an old hardy Pear, one of the Apostle Series? It is definitely zone 2. I have had one for 10 years but have never had it blossom for whatever reason. I have not read good things about fruit quality but it might make a great cross with something more edible because of the hardiness and fruit size..

Yes, John is one of the apostle pears, which aren't regarded for much except hardiness. I've fruited Philip and wouldn't consider it edible out of hand. I did get wood for them all from USDA this year. The Double Shovel Cidery in Anchorage is interested in them for their tannins so I shared the material. I'm just interested in them for diversity. My Russian pears have also survived, but none have hit puberty. Hopefully their alleged quality isn't just hype. So far the only remotely edible pear I've fruited here in Fairbanks is Early Gold. As far as Prairie Welcome, the phrase "Excellent for preserves" is usually code for "not so hot!"