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  • From: Richard Harrison <rharrison922@yahoo.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Help with pear ID?
  • Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:47:10 -0700 (PDT)

Donna,
    I ate a small Ayres on Saturday. A bird really seemed to want it--as it had a peck missing! This particular one was mostly yellow---unusual as most pears on the tree are russet with sometimes some red blush. That bird MUST have known the best pear on the tree though! It was delicious, great texture and juicy enough. Wish it would fruit heavier.
   There are also a few Warren pears this year---smallish, russet, late bloom sets---as usual.
                                                           Regards,
                                                           Richard, NW FL

--- On Wed, 8/12/09, Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net> wrote:

From: Kieran &/or Donna <holycow@frontiernet.net>
Subject: [NAFEX] Help with pear ID?
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 10:15 PM

There are 3 pears I am having trouble figuring out.  I'll be grateful if
someone here can figure them out.
    One should be easy.  It's a large plain green pear that turns yellow.
The skin is thin, the flesh tender and grit free, the flavor very mild
though distinctly pear like.   The texture is not juicy and melting like I
am used to in European style pears.  What is distinctive about this pear is
the weird lumpy shape.  It's as if it is made in sections of different
sizes, the larger sections create angular projections when seen from the
bottom.  The different sections kind of pucker together on the bottom end.
The larger the individual fruit, the more extreme the lumpiness.  I have
seen 2 trees, both quite upright and obviously a good 30+ years old.  I have
seen 2 people at the farmer's mkt selling the fruit, so I know it is
something that has been fairly widely available and of course quite blight
resistant.  So I have looked carefully though the most familiar names on the
Corvallis blight resistant list.  I figured it just had to be Maxine, esp
after one old guy said he bought his tree from Starks.  Photos of Maxine
don't look like it though.  Then I found just one painting of Beierschmitt
that seemed to have the lumpy bottom.  Any other suggestions or
verifications?


The other 2 shouldn't be a problem, but they are for me.  One is the tree in
town that is again making a huge crop of smallish delicious melting fruit,
and the other is my tree at home that makes pears that are squattier,
thicker skinned, more russetted, redder, and at least a week later.  I
thought last year that my pears weren't as good, but now I am not so sure.
The skin is definitely thicker and grittier on mine.  A nurseryman ID'd the
town tree as Ayers, which meant mine was something that comes in a bit
later.  I had assumed Moonglow till I saw some photos of Moonglow.  Then I
looked at Corvallis photos of Ayers, which looks more like my pear than the
town tree does.  So maybe the problem is that I have Ayers and the town tree
is something similar that comes in just a little earlier.  But I can't find
anything that makes a small melting blight resistant pear shortly before
Ayers.
    We are a little behind the seasons in town, probably because of the
cooler temps from the lake (nice in summer, not so nice in winter).  My tree
is young and the fruit get a lot more sun than the fruit under the large
thick canopy of the town tree.  Even the town fruit has rougher skin on
fruit that got a lot of sun.  But none of my fruit ever have any shine to
their skin like the town fruit do.  I know of 2 other trees that make fruit
just like mine, so I am assuming that they have to all 3 be Ayers.  If there
is an odd one out, it would be the town tree.  From what I am told, it had
to be something pretty easy to buy.  I suddenly started wondering if it
could be Dabney, which the McMinnville nurseries would have acquired back
when it came out in the 40's, and which could have been mislabeled  and
gradually absorbed under the name Ayers along with the real Ayers.  But
Dabney photos don't look right.  Please help me out here.  Can the same pear
be a different shape and skin under different conditions?  Or can you
suggest a variety it could be?
      Donna

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