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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: [nafex] New Pear Variety for Self Sufficiency
  • Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2015 16:11:47 -0400

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: alexis <alex@conev.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 12:04 PM
Subject: [nafex] New Pear Variety for Self Sufficiency
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org


WinterSweet Pear
A Valuable New Crop for Food Self-Sufficiency

PLEASE FORWARD

Summary:

The purpose of this document is to bring to the awareness of the reader a
new variety of pear tree that I believe will be useful for those seeking
food self-sufficiency, or simply a much better winter storage pear. See the
end of the document if you wish to acquire one or more trees.

The name of this pear tree is WinterSweet. I have been growing this tree in
3 orchards in Central Virginia for 5 years. The attributes of this tree and
its fruit are as follows.

Vigor -- This is the fastest growing pear tree of any I have ever planted,
often growing twice as fast as other pear trees, even in mediocre soil. In
August when other pear trees have yellowed and are readying for dormancy,
this tree is still dark green and growing.

Flavor -- This is the strongest flavored pear I have ever eaten. In the
early ripening stage, it has a very strong tart-sweet flavor with bitter
overtones. As it ripens fully, the bitterness disappears and the tartness
diminishes somewhat. The ripening pattern could be comparable to
(pear-flavored) Granny Smith apples -- very tart in the early ripening
stage to finish with an excellent sweet-tart flavor as it ripens fully.
This is a storage pear. The flavor is MUCH better then other late storage
pears like Kieffer or Burford.

Sugars (Brix) -- A friend of mine has a brix tester (he's a vegetable
breeder). We tested a couple of Wintersweets. The highest brix was 15.7,
with an average at 15.0. That is higher than most other pears.

Ripening Time -- Late, harvest season begins in early October in Central
Virginia, extending for at least several weeks.

Size -- Medium, about the size of a Bartlett.

Disease Resistance -- Some of our test orchards suffer extreme disease and
insect pressure. The fruit of this pear is little bothered by insects. The
tree has suffered no blight damage whatsoever after 5 years in an orchard
with extreme blight pressure where other “blight resistant” pears have been
killed or badly damaged. This does NOT constitute an conclusive blight
resistance test.

Texture -- In the early ripening stage, the texture is poor, fibrous,
sawdusty. As the fruit ripens fully, the texture improves substantially to
become a crunchy, sweet, dense pear. At full ripe, it is still the densest
pear I have ever eaten. The texture of this pear probably means it has
little value on the grocery store shelf (where people are used to delicate
“desert” pears imported from afar).

Storage Value -- Limited experimentation leads us to believe that this pear
is an excellent storage pear. It is a very dense pear, which appears to
help it store a long time without refrigeration. We have not done enough
storage with our various varieties to make a conclusive comparison yet.

Pollination -- All of our Wintersweets are in orchards with numerous other
pear trees. I have no means by which to assess if WinterSweet is
self-fertile to any degree.

Further Commentary

The mother of this tree was growing on a farm that belongs to a friend of
mine in Central VA. The mother of the WinterSweet Pear tree was a massive
tree, probably 16 inches or more in diameter, perhaps 50 feet tall. It was
in a cow pasture, and produced a prodigious quantity of pears that we made
into the most amazing cider I have ever tasted. I was impressed by this
late, dense, sweet fruit, and started grafting it. I prize late fruit
highly. I love my Seckle Pear, but in August, life is just too full of good
things for the self-sufficient farmer. The mother of WinterSweet blew over
in a storm a few years ago.

I have planted WinterSweets in 3 orchards in Central Virginia. Orchard
number 1 is in Charlottesville VA and suffers from extreme fireblight
pressure. If you are familiar with fireblight, you know that is a
/very/fickle disease that responds with extreme variability to
environmental triggers (moisture and temperature, I think). A tree that
shows no signs of blight for years may be devastated by the disease when
circumstances change. The performance of other pear trees in regards to
fireblight in orchard number 1 are as follows:

Magness -- killed to the ground.

Harvest Queen -- A Bartlett derivative that is supposed to be “much more
disease resistant” than Bartlett (quoting Cummins Nursery). My Harvest
Queen has produced some really delightful fruit, but it has been hammered
by fireblight and appears to be in terminal decline.

Kieffer -- Badly damaged by blight. (I cut it down after a few productive
years because the fruit consistently tasted like damp styrofoam).

Seckle -- Minor damage each year.

Ayers -- I have only had this tree a few years and have seen no damage yet.

Our number 2 and 3 test orchards have dozens of varieties of pears in them.
The blight pressure is less extreme than the number 1 orchard (much better
air movement). Some of our “blight resistant” trees have suffered at least
minor damage in these orchards as well. To date Wintersweet has experienced
no blight damage in our number 2 or number 3 orchards.

The reason I believe this tree is valuable from a food self-sufficiency
standpoint is that the tree is so incredibly vigorous, shows no signs of
disease problems, produces a prodigious quantity of very sweet fruit,
produces its fruit in the fall after the peak of the annuals harvest has
passed, and probably will store for a long time in a root cellar or other
appropriate environment. *Winter fruit without canning is highly valuable
from a food self-sufficiency standpoint. *

WinterSweet appears to be a European/ Asian cross. It has a an Asian growth
pattern, with branches close together in a vertical orientation. It does
not spread naturally. It has thick stems and gives the appearance of an
Asian pear. The flavor however is radically different than Asian pears. I
have never tasted a pear with such tartness.

I believe it would be helpful for the local food movement if this pear tree
were widely disseminated, particularly for people aspiring to food
self-sufficiency. WinterSweet is a dramatically better pear than other
winter keepers like Burford or Keiffer, much sweeter and more flavorful.
Wintersweet has a later ripening time than any of the other “desert” pears,
later than any pear with which I am familiar. Given its density and late
ripening, it may store later into the winter than any of the other storage
pears, though I cannot make that claim based on systematic comparisons with
other pears.

Plan to Disseminate

We have a limited quantity of fruit at this time. We also have an excellent
solar food drying system. I am part of an organization called Living Energy
Farm that is building a farm and a community that will run without fossil
fuel (see livingenergyfarm.org). I would like to propagate this tree and
let the proceeds support Living Energy Farm. In the winter of 2015-2016, I
will order roostock. (I teach propagation classes and get the rootstock for
those classes.) I use OHxF pear rootstock. WinterSweet is the fastest
growing pear of any we have planted on OHxF rootstock, which is a modern,
blight-resistant rootstock. We use OHxF 333, a semi-dwarf rootstock, and
OHxF 97, which produces a near full-sized tree. Our earliest WinterSweets
are on 333 rootstock, and have a vertical orientation topping off at about
15 feet. I don't think they are going to get any taller. So far our
WinterSweets on OHxF 97 are wider, and perhaps 20 feet tall. I don't know
what the final height of a WinterSweet on OHxF 97 might be.

This winter, we are going to try to send dried samples of WinterSweet to as
many people as we can (at no charge). We are going to propagate trees based
on the number of people who say they are interested in purchasing trees
shipped to them in winter 2016-2017 (about a year from now). If you want a
tree, let us know now. Asking for a tree now will NOT commit you to buying
one a year from now. We will ask for payment then, and you can decline at
that time if you choose. But I don't want to propagate a lot of trees
unless there is sufficient interest. Final cost will depend on what we can
figure our for shipping. I would estimate something in the range of $30 -
$40 for one tree, and an additional $25 for each additional tree.

I will probably not disseminate scion wood this year as supply is limited.
Please let me know if you would like to make buy a WinterSweet next winter.
Please let me know if you want a free sample (small) of the dried fruit. We
will be sending these samples to a LIMITED number of people. Please send an
email with WinterSweet in the subject line to tradelocally (that email
symbol) yahoo.com to indicate your interests.

Thanks,

Alexis Zeigler
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--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/



  • [permaculture] Fwd: [nafex] New Pear Variety for Self Sufficiency, Lawrence London, 10/26/2015

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