Brook, you might want to look at the recent thread linked below. There's a lot of information in that thread about fireblight resistant pears, including comments from people in zones 6 and 5.

And not to hijack your thread, but I'm curious what Asian pears do well for you since you mention having serious fireblight pressure.

Isn't Sunrise a really early pear? It's one I'd like to try, too, but I wonder what that earliness (if I'm not mistaken) means for keeping ability, which you said is a priority for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: pears for South

Where are you? Hopefully a poster close to you will tell their success stories

Hands down, the best pear to grow where I am is Harrow Sweet. Bears by the 3rd or 4th season (on vigorous root stock), delicious fruit, fireblight resistant, can be picked right up until ripe on the tree, ripens late, bears as reliably as anything I grow.

I've tried about 15 other varieties here- maybe more.

Harvestman, do you mind sharing the names of some of the varieties you wouldn't recommend (particularly any that might generally be recommended for fireblight resistance) and what fault you found in them?

Thanks, all. Harrowsweet was high on my list. I'm in southern IL. I lost a total of 5 pears last year and was looking to replace them w/3 different pears and two apples. I love bosc, but it was affected the worst. I'm actually glad the seckel died as I hated it. I've settled on Harrowsmith, Sunrise, and Magness unless someone offers another favorite for me to consider.

Magness has taken a long time to bear for a lot of posters, some as long as 10 years; but a couple people have had really good luck with it. Mine hasn't done anything in 5 years. I've seen suggestions to grow it on quince, though there are fireblight issues in some areas.

Second H-man on Harrow Sweet. I planted mine in the spring of 2012. It fruited the next year and this past year, very precocious. I believe mine is on OHxF 87.

Fruit is good size, tasty and disease-resistant. Has some pear blister mites. No fire blight (knock on wood).

My Blake Pride has not produced yet.

CF, I haven't tasted the several new highly blight resistant varieties like Blakes Pride.

Magness is delicious but takes forever to bare. It is resistant to some of the other issues we have here and seems not to scab out. I get the impression that it isn't very productive but I need more seasons with it.

Bosc is in a class of its own in being a very sweet hard pear (if you want to eat it that way) which gives it some culinary advantages, but it is a FB, scab and psyla magnet. Turns out so is Seckel here, but Seckel has an ideal growth habit (nice spreading tree) and does get up great sugar in the NE. It is also easy to harvest (like HS) because it doesn't rot inside out if you leave it too long on the tree.

Aurora is pretty nice and hasn't shown high disease susceptibility, but I'm not all that fond of early pears. Harrow Delight is a nice, problem free, extremely reliable summer pear, but it's a bit bland. Delicious is easy too and more bland.

Dutchess is a keeper for its size and relative ease to grow but doesn't bear as reliably as Harrow Sweet or as heavily or nearly as young. Very good pear though.

Sheldon showed me something this year- its an amazing keeper and I just ate a pretty good one out of the fridge, but it is hard to time its harvest, takes quite a while to bear and isn't as sweet as HS. It tends to be biennial for me as well, regardless of thinning.

Up here Bartlett is another easy one but I don't find it as rich as a few of the others I mentioned here and it comes on too early for me to be interested in pears yet.

Tyson isn't any better than Harrow Delight (which is good enough) and is susceptible to psyla and scab.

Highland is just a mess- disease magnet and tends to crack. Needs dawn to dusk sun to get adequate sugar.

I expect further south there isn't the same issue of pears getting full sugar as there is in our less intense light. Pears, more than any fruit I grow, need full sun.

I think Fondante de Moulins Lille is supposed to have good fireblight resistance. Scott has given this one good reports for years and my first harvest this year was very good (18 brix, sweet, juicy and flavorful). It is pretty precocious, though Harrow sweet is even more so (flowered twice- spring and fall- the first year I had it in the ground).

Sounds like Harrow Sweet is one I'll have to look into as well. My kids seem to be gravitating more to pears than they did previously. My wife loves them too. So do I for that matter.
Where did you purchase yours at Bob, Mamuang?
Mamuang...is it very slow growing on the OHxF87?

Appleseed,

Admittedly, I was not good at keeping records. (I've gotten better now). I think I bought it and BP from Schlabach.

It doesn't grow as fast as BP with the same rootstock. It could be because I let it fruit early (only a couple pears).
I just wanted to know what these pears tasted like. They were good.

This past year I let the one pear hung for a longer time. It turned beautiful yellow with red blush, very pretty.

The scratches you see were from a squirrel trying to take it down. It's not from any disease. The fruit hung low at the end of a small branch about 3 ft from the ground.

H'man, thanks very much for those details on all those other pears. Thanks for allowing me to tap into all that valuable experience.

I got a Harrow Sweet for myself from Cummins in 2013 and for my dad in 2014 from ACN. Both are on OHxF 87 rootstock.

Thanks Harvestman for the detailed list. I wonder if there are any heirloom pears which are similar to Bosc, yet more disease resistant? It, along with Comice and Concorde are among my favorite mainstream pears. But, I've heard that all 3 have disease issues. Per one of the vendors at the farmer's market, Comice has some productivity issues as well.

Slight thread hijack... but how do D'Anjou trees stack up against others mentioned? I purchased a D'Anjou and Bartlett last summer. The D'Anjou had extreme transplant shock (actually thought it wasn't going to make it) when I put it in the ground so I'm worried this might not be a very hardy tree.

Bob, I love Comice as well- that's one reason I tried and tried Highland. This year my late pears, Dutchess, Sheldon and Harrow Sweet made me forget about Comice- some of them were that good.

I wish there was something similar to Bosc but tougher as well. It's funny, but a couple decades back I picked a bushel of perfect Boscs from an abandoned commercial orchard near Fishkill, NY. They were already ripe enough to eat and looked like store bought. Pears will produce with no spray until they don't.

I looked around in ARS for pears where Bosc is mentioned and found a couple of interest:
Doyenne Gris- "Sweet, spicy flavor, equal to Bosc in dessert quality." It lists "No damage" for scab and rust, and says it is "Moderately susceptible to fire blight." (which is better than Bosc)

Elliot (CPYR 2624)- "50% russeted. Buttery texture; flavor similar to Bosc; soluble solids to 18%. Ripens 2 to 4 weeks after Bartlett; stores 16 weeks at 0 C. Tree: upright habit; no fire blight during 20 years of observation, apparently resistant."

I was thinking about skipping adding any pears this year, but I may add these in.

While looking, I saw a few other interesting ones. I don't have a ton of space to graft them, so I'll probably only request a 2-3 of this second list:

Bon Chretien Bonnamour- "Extremely sweet, rich flavor similar to that of Winter Nelis. Late keeper, holds up well in ripe stage. Tree vigorous and productive. Semi-dwarf on quince. Moderately susceptible to blight."

Rousselet de Reims- "An ancient variety...Flesh white, semi-fine, buttery but not melting, moderately juicy. Extremely sweet, aromatic, spicy flavor...almost standard tree on quince, productive. Moderately susceptible to blight."..."Flesh breaking or half buttery, with a sweet, rich, aromatic flavour."- Downing

Sucre Verte- "Flesh white, fine, but with some grit at the center, buttery, juicy. Fairly sweet, nut-like aroma, pleasing flavor."..."Moderately susceptible to blight."

Beurre Dumont- "ripens late and is still regarded in the Geneva (NY) Station collection as one of the best winter pears. Oblong, conical, green and brown with white, very fine grained, sweet flesh and perfumed flavor."- Southmeadow. "flesh white, fine, and half breaking. Juice- very abundant and sugary, possesing a slight musky flavor and exquisite flavor"- Scott's Catalog

Duchesse d'Angouleme- Flesh becoming buttery at maturity but not melting, somewhat granular, moderately juicy. Sweet, fairly pleasing in flavor but not outstanding in dessert quality. Early midseason. Tree vigorous, stately, productive, hardy, and healthy....Moderately resistant to blight. Semi-dwarf on quince."..." Samuel G. Perkins exhibited a pear that measured 11 3/4 inches long!"

Rogue Red- "Flesh is white, fine grained with some stone cells, melting, tender, very juicy under proper storage, very sweet with a distinctive flavor, and very good dessert quality. As a scion, 'Rogue Red' is compatible with P. communis and Cydonia (quince) rootstock."..."attractive red pear appears promising for the late winter market."..."harvest period coincides with Comice and Bosc, but may be ripened any time up to May" "moderately susceptible to fire blight"

I don't think Scott considers South Meadow Nursery to be "his". It's reputation is less than stellar with 2 negative reviews to each positive according to this. Hard to rate worse.

"This" is Dave's Garden review which Garden Web won't allow me to post.

Harvestman, sorry for the confusion, but I wasn't referring to our Scott. The quote comes from Scott's Orchardist: Or Catalogue of Fruits Cultivated at..., by John Scott.

The Southmeadow quote is separate and actually contained in the ARS article. It is from a 1976 catalog, so it may have more veracity than something they've put out recently.

Based on what I've read from various reports here and my research I'm definitely going to try a Harrow Sweet. I wanted to grow 2 pears trained into an archway over a garden entrance, so I'm ordering a Harrow Sweet and a Harrow Crisp from Cummins on OHxF 87. Hopefully the rootstock won't be too vigorous for my plan, but I thought I'd let them grow to an arch about 10 feet tall or so... we'll see. I actually wanted to try Shenandoah instead of Harrow Crisp, but I had seen some reports that it wasn't that fire blight resistant and I didn't want to take a chance of winding up with half an arch! I hope these 2 will pollinate each other or at the very least be pollinated by the ornamental flower pears in my neighborhood.

I've been planting fruit trees for just a few years but am a very experienced grafter. This year upon recommendations of a President of NAFEX for my zone5b IL climate, I've purchased scionwood based on his suggestions that "an Illinois fruit hobbyist might consider."

"For pears, I would suggest Ewart, Harrow Sweet, and Clara Frijs, especially Harrow Sweet which has fire blight resistance. Concorde is an excellent late pear, and so is Sierra." (Bob Purvis)

Dax

Thanks, all, for the heads up on Magness. I had only looked at the positive reviews on taste. I can't have poor production on a tree that also takes a long time to produce. I want to sell these pears.

It seems there is little experience w/Sunrise. I think it's worth a try along w/Harrow Sweet. Now that Magness is out,I'm leaning toward trying one of the Stark varieties, probably Honeysweet. The watery characteristic of Delicious doesn't sound appealing tho.

Cousinfloyd, sorry, but I overlooked your question about Asian pears. I did lose a Hosui. Nijiseiki was untouched and is reliable and good tasting. Korean Giant does ok, but it's a structural nightmare in that its limbs seem to want to grow every direction. Chojuro just started producing and looks to be very good. It had some blight but survived. I have a couple newer ones that were just whips when the fireblight hit, and they're ok.

I am to blame for the fireblight by getting too much nitrogen into my orchard. I had really been piling on the grass clippings around the drip line of the trees and had just fertilized 12,000 onions nearby w/urea when we got a massive 7 inch rain, which I assumed washed straight into the orchard.

I have a Honeysweet on OHxF 333, right next to my Magness on Quince. Neither has fruited after 3 years in the ground, but both look to be close. The Fondante de Moulins Lille is right next to them and produced a nice crop in year 3- I can send you some scionwood if you want to try it. The Magness has nice green almost pristine leaves, while the Honeysweet has lots of spotting (FdML was in between, similar to Harrow Sweet). Practically speaking, I'm not sure how much of an issue leaf spot will be, but I imagine clean leaves will perform better.

I did a lot of branch bending last year with them and it seems to have spurred some fruit spur development. So, hopefully I can compare the fruit next year.

I don't think you need to put Harrowsweet on a dwarfing root stock if you want a small tree. Because it's early fruiting you will be able to keep it pretty small without losing its production, much as is the case with Asian pears.