North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Anton Callaway <marillen@earthlink.net>]

"Seriously, how is it possible you are growing 100 varieties where you are?"

Plant at least 100 seeds of 'Baldwin'.  ;)

-----Original Message-----
>From: Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
>Sent: Jul 2, 2009 10:44 AM
>To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Re 100 vars pear in Fla?
>
>Richard,  If you can grow 100 varieties of pear in NW Florida, without 
>bothering about chill hours or apparently too much worry about fireblight, 
>why can't the rest of us do that?  I read that for 25 years a trial ran in 
>GA in which the standards for comparison, Bartlett and a few other quality 
>pears, were replaced regularly whenever they died to keep the trial running. 
> The Bartlett would be replaced about every 4-5 years.  Are your trees 
>dying?  Do they crop?  If they don't get enough chill hours to bloom, or if 
>they haven't grown big enough to bloom, they aren't likely to get a lot of 
>blight.  Is there something about the sea breezes where you are, or 
>something about the soil we should emulate, or do you use BD preps or secret 
>chants or have homeopathic preps buried under the trees?  Seriously, how is 
>it possible you are growing 100 varieties where you are?   Donna