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Dear Thomas,

     Our climate in Houston is warmer than yours (zone 9) but probably even 
more humid.  Fireblight is always a significant problem for us and this was a 
particularly bad spring because of unceasing rains.  Many of our early 
blooming varieties such as Southern Bartlett, Spaulding, Louisiana Beauty and 
Meadows got extensive blight at the flower level because it was too wet to 
spray with streptomycin or other remedies.  These trees, themselves, do not 
seem to be threatened, and in most years, they do fine and set large numbers 
of fruit.  There are several varieties that, over many years of observation, 
seem totally resistant to the fireblight problem here.  One is Southern 
Queen, which originated in Mississippi, and another is Tennessee, which was 
developed but not released by the Univ. of Tenn.  As usually, these have set 
many fruit which look fine.  Other varieties, such as Turnbull, always have 
some blight, but set so many fruit anyway, that this is never a significant 
problem.  They could be considered fireblight tolerant, and it is not 
necessary to spray them with anything.  Unfortunately, this is not a high 
quality pear.  Still others, such as Floridahome (interestingly, one of its 
parents is Tennessee) have absolutely no resistance to blight and are 
immediately killed the first year they bloom here.  The Warren pear is of 
high quality and later blooming and has a minor problem with blight.  
Unfortunately, it never sets a large crop here.  I think with proper 
selection, you should easily be able to combat the fireblight problem.

                                                                 Regards, 
Ethan

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Beckett <thomas@tbeckett.com>
Sent: Apr 4, 2004 11:40 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] pears & fireblight

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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