Help with Growing Pears

[The Fishman]

I am wanting to plant pears primarily for wildlife and not human consumption. I have access to plenty of pears that are what I believe to be sand pears at my grandparents’ place, but I have been unable over the past couple of years to propagate any of the seeds. These trees have been there forever and are loaded every year and usually drop in September and October. I have read different opinions on whether pears are true to seed or not, but I could always graft onto the roots of whatever seedlings are produced if I could get a seedling to grow. Any advice on how to grow pears from seed? I have followed advice on stratifying the seed like apples, but I haven’t had any germination success.



Also, Walmart is starting to close out their stock of “wildlife pears” from Chestnut Hills Outdoors. Walmart is selling the Thanksgiving Pears that Chestnut Hills produces. Does anyone have experience with these pears? I will be planting the pear trees in south Louisiana, so the climate is similar to Florida where the trees are grown and south Georgia where these pears were supposed to originate. The current price is $21 for the 3-gallon trees and $30 for 7-gallon trees, but I figured I would get a couple of the 3-gallon trees when the price dropped below $15. My plans are to repot them and keep them in my yard over the summer and plant them this fall or next spring.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for pear varieties or nurseries to purchase from? Apples don’t seem to do very well in my southern climate. I am already working on persimmons, but also wanted some pears.

 

[H20fwler]

For varieties Keiffer is probably the most popular everywhere, Ayers is also a good pear along with Moonglow and Olympic those are all pretty DR. Moonglow is a great pollinator for other pears.
As far as good nurseries Cummins, Wildlife Group, Raintree, Stark.
As far as your sand pears I don't have any experience raising pears from seed but pears aren't to hard to graft, I like OH97 rootstock for wildlife.

 

[Telemark]

I couldn't germinate pear seeds either. None of them ever grew. No idea why.

 

[chummer]

I couldn't germinate pear seeds either. None of them ever grew. No idea why.

I have three pears growing from grocery store pears. Funny thing is, I planted a few of them with a ton of apple seeds and all I got was 3 pears and 1 apple. They have been in the ground for 3 years now and survived enough winters to get cages for protection. I have had massive failures with pears dying in winter. They appear they are going to be a thorny tree. My guess on the pears growing and the apples not is I only had the seeds in the fridge for a short period of time. Maybe pears don’t need cold stratification. If you pears are never seeing cold I would just plant the seed sand see what happens.

 

[Headdigger]

Here are some ideas that you may consider. Go to your grandparent's place and flag seedlings that are already growing. Graft them in place early next spring. Dig them up and transplant them where you want them to grow the following fall or winter. Evaluate the merits of the fruit bearing trees that you have access to. Look for disease problems such as Fire Blight and high sensitivity to Leaf Spot. Wait until the fruit is ripe and do a taste test. If the fruit is gritty and sweet, it will probably be more attractive to wildlife then fruit that is gritty and astringent. Flag desirable trees for sources of scion wood. You may even give them a name, Pear 1, Pear 2, or Grannys pear 1, 2, anything to keep them straight. When I collect an unknown pear or a seedling, I label them with the last name of the property owner, Byrum Pear, Cook Pear, Pursley Early, Pursley Late. This helps me keep track of my stored scion wood. I have located three Callery Pear seedlings in my pasture. I grafted desirable wood to them in March with 100% success. You may consider buying some OHXF97 pear rootstock for next spring.

 

[The Fishman]

I have thought about grafting to callery pears, but luckily I haven't found any. I guess that is a good thing. I have looked for seedlings at my grandparents' place, but haven't found any. My uncle takes care of the place now and I have asked him to keep a lookout for some and he hasn't found any either. I will do more looking in a couple of weeks for seedlings. The seeds in the sand pear are very small. They are much smaller than an apple seed.

This past fall, I tried dumping about 10 gallons of pears from my grandparents' place at my parents' place where I want to plant them one day. I did this in hopes that the deer and coyotes would do the stratification and planting for me. I also want to try and cut out the core of the pear in the fall and just plant the core to see if I can have any success that way. I will also see about ordering some pear root stock. I knew that you could order apple root stock, but I never knew that pears had their own root stock.