[NAFEX] pears & fireblight
Thomas Beckett
thomas at tbeckett.com
Mon Apr 5 00:40:05 EDT 2004
Last month I had the opportunity to speak to an orchard fruit expert
from NCSU, and asked him about growing pears in North Carolina. I'm
interested in using pears in cider and/or blended with apple cider. He
told me that pears are not commercially viable in North Carolina because
of the fireblight risk. Pears are apparently much too susceptible, and
fireblight is endemic and spreads easily in our relatively humid climate.
I've been mulling this over, and have a couple of questions for the
collective wisdom of NAFEX:
- Are pears any more at risk for fireblight than some types of dwarfing
apple rootstock such as M26?
- Are their heirloom "old Southern" pear varieties that are resistant to
fireblight and might be cultivated here on a small scale?
Many thanks, in advance, for y'all's thoughts.
Thomas Beckett
Durham/Hendersonville
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