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In my experience, all varieties of European pear are self-fruitful when they bloom in that temperature range. 

For years, I mapped soils on the Coastal Plain of South Carolina.  I would come across abandoned farmsteads from time to time, and they nearly always had a pear tree; and I never found one (out of dozens) that, during the growing season, was without fruit.  This was the case even when there was no other pear tree within miles (and I could be certain of this, from having walked nearly every acre of ground in the vicinity).

Eddie Earles

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Haigh
Sent: Nov 18, 2008 7:29 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] self fruitfulness

I have read and seen evidence of the tendency of some pears and apricots to be fruitful without the benefit of cross pollination on years when the spring weather is accommodating or in regions where the springs are aways mild.  Childers wrote in his book, "Modern Fruit Science", that in southern California Bartlett pears used to be grown commercially without the benefit of a second variety for pollination.  Some of the cold-hardy varieties of apricots we grow in the northeast such as Hargrand and others from the Harrow program require cross pollination to bear consistently when grown here but apparently not when grown in warmer climates.

 

In the case of pears, this production is parthenocarpic (without seeds) and can occur for some varieties including Comice, Bartlett and Hardy when temperatures between 70 and 85 d. F. occur during bloom.  I have no information about the parameters of apricot self-fruitfulness but the fruit that occurs from self-pollination definitely has seeds.  When I first started planting the Harrow series, Adams County Nursery touted them as self-fertile but my experience was different.  They now say cross-pollination is helpful.  I wonder if the variability is weather related.

 

In the case of hybrid plum pollination I wonder if the contradictory experiences may be weather related as is the case with pears and apparently apricots.

 

Alan Haigh, the Home Orchard Co.