North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman@murraystate.edu>]

At 10:29 PM 6/1/2005, Donna wrote:
> I don't know as I haven't had bearing trees. I almost said "bearing age",
> but they are bearing age, just not bearing size due to the bad soil.  But I
> was very surprised to see a little grafted tree of "Dixie Delight" blight
> and completely die in the last few weeks.
Donna,
Dr. Griffith, whom I got 'Dixie Delight' from, says it blights more than he 
likes down there in AL, but he thought he could live with the level of 
infection it gets:
"DIXIE DELIGHT. The tree blights more than I like but I think I can live 
with that problem. The fruit ripens in late August to mid-September, is of 
medium size, and has beautiful russet skin. The flesh is crisp and juicy 
with a sweet, tangy taste. Most people consider it a delight to eat.  In 
the few years that I've had it though, the fruit has developed an 
astringency that makes it less desirable.  If growing conditions can be 
found or made which will regularly produce the excellent quality fruit, it 
should be a real winner."

> No late frost, droughty
> conditions.  No sign of blight in any of the other rootstocks or grafted
> pears in pots.  Some are on pear, some on hawthorn.  I don't know what the
> pear rootstock is, it's not thorny like calleryana, came from Lawyer's I
> think.  Looked like the stock blighted first, then moved up to the graft.
My DD, grafted the same year I sent scions to you, is doing fine, on 
OHxF513 and fostered onto a branch on a Keiffer tree - no FB on any of the 
pears on 513 - but none of them are more than 3 years old, and none have 
bloomed yet.
Minimal FB on Keiffer(no idea what its rootstock is), but it takes it and 
rolls along pretty much unfazed, anyway; Clapp's Favorite is all but a 
goner, but the rootstock(whatever it is) is putting out vigorous shoots, 
I'm presuming from below the graft union(which I can't discern 
anymore).  Ubileen on hawthorn has a moderate case of FB, which got all its 
fruiting spurs - so, no fruit this year.
Chojuro, on Harbin pear rootstock has the worst case of FB it's ever had - 
mostly affecting fruiting spurs, but I don't think it came in during the 
bloom period - didn't really hit until after those frosts/freezes we had 
back in late Apr/early May.
Shinko has moderate FB; Niitaka is totally unaffected, I don't recall how 
much, if any, FB is present on the Korean Giant.
None of the other non-fruiting(though some are old enough that they oughta 
be) European pears have any FB.

My Warren - in that group of pears I've discussed previously that were 
grafted onto seedling pear rootstocks that turned out to be mostly apple 
seedlings - has at least a couple of fruits set on it.  It's the most 
vigorous tree in that group, and may actually be growing on pear rootstock, 
as 2 out of the 10 pears grafted on that bundle of seedlings look pretty 
good, with no rootstock suckering.