Pears in 2023
At Field Day this year, our speaker was Gretchen Merryweather. She owns Sweetland Orchard in Webster, Minnesota where she has 5,000 trees on six acres, with 24 varieties of pear and 100 apple varieties. Sweetland Orchard sells fresh fruit and makes unique farmhouse ciders and perries, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears. You can visit her farm this fall to buy apples and pears (apples for sure) and also check it out on Facebook.
At CREC this year, Ely pear has no fruit after a big crop in 2022. Schroeder Hardy ND had a good crop on one tree but hardly any on the other, which was overcropped last year. I’m not sure about these varieties. Ely fruit was quite tannic and did not seem to soften or ripen either on the tree or after storage. It’s very late. SHND has beautiful, large fruit but has tasted terrible so far. I think it may be an incorrect accession.
Stacey pear had a big crop this year on both trees. It’s caught me unprepared the last two years when it ripened and was eaten by wasps in the 8 or 10 days I was gone on vacation. I got it this year, but I’m unimpressed yet. The day I picked it, about 15% of fruit was pretty yellow, 70% was slight yellow green, and another 15% was green. All the yellow fruit has spoiled in cold storage. The ones that were more properly mature are better but not very flavorful.
There was a big wind and rain on Monday evening, September 4. Enough Nova pears and just a few Pattens fell off the trees with the brittle connections pears have. A few Nova seem to be lightening in color, so I will be keeping a close eye on them. Patten pears are still quite green and ripened into frost last year. So far, Nova and Patten have been our best pear crops.
Gretchen Merryweather left us a handout of pears that she has grown successfully just south of Minneapolis, MN. If you would like to experiment with pear trees, this list is a good place to start.
Kathy Wiederholt
Kathy.Wiederholt@ndsu.edu
Fruit Project Manager
