North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[rmelrose@danvilleVT.net]

Indeed pears can take their time. Mine are in zone 4a/3b (tending toward
the former) and cropping has been as follows (in years after
planting, heavy meaning over 100 pears, very light meaning 1, 2 or 3)

Golden Spice -- flowered 7, light 8,9 heavy 10, 11. 
Summercrisp -- flowered 6,7, light 8,9 moderate 10, 11.
Luscious -- flowered 8,9, light 10,11.
Ure -- flowered 7-10, very light 11.
Parker -- flowered 8,9
Early Gold (grafted onto a branch of Golden Spice) light 2!!

Not surprisingly I have developed a liking for the Golden Spice -- I have
seen this criticized as being inedible, but when fully ripe (late September
here) it makes a truly delicious stewed pear dessert! Summercrisp is a nice to
much, Luscious is the best for eating I have so far.

Note the behaviour of the Early Gold (thank you Clair Lammers for the
scion). I certainly did not expect this to fruit last year and did nor
really notice that it had until too late -- the pears were way overripe when I
tried them. I plan to do a bit more branch-grafting to see whether I can
get something else to produce quickly. I suppose having a mature scion is
part of the trick.

So I live in hope!

Richard

> 
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu Feb  1 09:12:56 2007
> From: "Jim Fruth" <jfruth@tds.net>
> Subject: [NAFEX] Zone 3a Pears
> To: "NAFEX" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <001201c74601$f93fd450$2f79de42@ibma20plaptop>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
>       reply-type=original
> 
>     I bought Ure, Nova, John, Summer Crisp and Buerre Gifford from the 
> former Bear Creek Nursery eleven years ago.  So far the Ure has given me 
> two 
> fruits, two years ago.  Nova failed to harden off one Fall and promptly 
> died.  John has been trying to die since I planted it.  Buerre Gifford's 
> leaves gets some unknown fungus every year and last year, for its first 
> time, did bloom a few flowers but produced no fruit.  Ditto for Summer 
> Crisp; few flowers but no fruit.  I keep threatening to grub them out and 
> plant something that WILL bear - eleven years is a long time to wait for 
> production.
> 
> Jim Fruth
> Brambleberry Farm
> Pequot Lakes, MN  56472
> www.bberryfarm.com
> (218)568-8483 [Store]
> (218)831-7018 [My Cell]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 8
> Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 07:56:32 -0600
> From: "Erdman, James" <ErdmanJ@uwstout.edu>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Zone 3a Pears
> To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <413BF80F8BF1254094223A8811DBCE3524B2A6@FMS.uwstout.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> It took over 12 years before we got any fruit from our Nova pear.  I don't 
> want to  wait that long again, but am not sure what to do differently to 
> get faster bearing--but I am trying different varieties and different 
> rootstocks.
>  
> Jim Erdman
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Jim Fruth
> 
> 
> - eleven years is a long time to wait for
> production.
>