North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

Richard,   

    You can actually grow 100 varieties of pears that far south?  I get the impression that a lot of them simply don't get enough chill hours to bloom that far south.  As for growing Bartlett at all, I am baffled that you and Ethan mention high quality pears that I've never dreamed of trying to grow here.  David Lockwood, UT's horticulture expert, says he's never seen a Bartlett tree here more than 4 years old.  I really don't hold out too much hope for some of the varieties I've ordered, I just wanted to see what they were like before they died, and I didn't know any other way to go about it. 

    The UT pear program would check for resistance in seedlings by grafting a branch of Bartlett onto each tree, and then inoculate the Bartlett with FB.  If it stopped spreading when it met the hybrid, the seedling was considered resistant.  Morgan is apparently one of the few Bartlett seedlings ever produced that is truly resistant.  Studies showed that if parents that had at least some degree of resistance they produced more resistant seedlings.  Donna