Pears Vs Crabs zone 7

[White Oak]

I live in Virginia zone 7 , and first started my Treeplot in 2020 with Crabapples from Whitetail Crabs (PA) , 2 Keiffers pears and a Moonglow from Lowes (source unknown) Dr Deer Pears from Walmart/Chestnut Hill (Florida) Native Nurseries Wild Deer Pears (MS) . In 2021 I Added Crabs from Blue Hill (Pa) and Tractor supply Callaway crabs (source unknown)

In my observation my pears started to bud out a little 4-5 days ago....with the NN (Ms) trees are the farthest along and the Dr Deer pears (FL) just behind. We've had an unusually warm winter this year and trees usually don't bud out until 3- 4 weeks from now in March. I noticed last year the pears budded out early and got hit with frost...I'm afraid it'll happen again this year as well

My question is....do pears in general bud out sooner than Crabapples ? . Or is this happening because the pears come from a source in a more southern climate than where I'm located ?. I wanted to get some pear trees from The Wildlife group in Alabama.....BUT I'm assuming they will bud out early as well. I'm thinking I might be better off sticking with Crabapples from Blue Hill or Whitetail Crabs in PA as they apparently bud out later or are just more hardy.

Thanks for any opinions .....I do have 2 Rutrage pears coming from Whitetail Crabs this spring....I guess next year I'll be able to gauge if a Northern grown pear buds out the same time as my southern pears....

 

[ng270]

I have a bunch of seedling crabs (no-names) and they vary in how early they push buds and actually break buds. But a few of them are always earlier than any of my pears (8 european varieties, 2 asian). On the other hand I have some crabs that don't break bud until weeks after the first ones. Seedling crabs all came from PA, pears from a variety (geographically) of sources.

Plums are generally the first of all my fruit trees though, and especially Ruby Queen; that thing leafs out and blooms so early every year I'm not sure it'll ever set fruit.

 

[bigboreblr]

Kieffer pears originated from Philadelphia.

Can't speak if pears bud out earlier. but, if your buying more apple trees you should consider pollination groups. Which is more of less dates they flower. With these specialty crabapple breeds, it's hard to find polination times for some of them unless you ask. It might be better to ask what the crabapple bud out to compared to a well known apple breed at their location.

Liberty is a well regarded apple on here, but I chose to put more enterprise at home to get a later blossoming apple. I'm only planting 25 or so trees at home, but offset every few apples to a crabapple. I am trying to collect atleast one of each well regarded deer crabapple on here for scion material for my club's property. I am also growing some trees for cider. which quite often most regarded cider trees are later bloomers. Hewe's in in group 3, and has been used as a rootstock as well years ago. That one shuld be right up your alley too, its also called virginia crab. turkey creek has some left in stock. chestnut is another later to bloom crabapple. Crabapple typical bloom longer than apple trees. Trailman might be an option too for you, it's a very cold hardy tree that was made in Minnesota. I put in golden delicious for both cider and late bloom times.

I got pear trees on order, but the only reason I am doing this is for cider production. Pears have a higher concentration of sorbitol, which is a non fermentable sugar. It is added often to hard ciders to get a sweeter taste. Pretty much modern cider producers use artificial sorbitol. If it wasn't for making hard cider, I'd probably not have a single pear tree.

I'm on a path to finding a good crabapple tree for up north in zone 3. One of the things I look for is being self fertile, which may not be a problem for you. Incase bears or harsh winters damages a small group of 3 or 4 and only 1 lives. I lease the property, so the loggers are always damaging stuff. wrecking trails, running into treestands, they do jerk stuff sometimes. But, they also get lease owners giving them a hard time too. not me personally.

Cold hours is something you need to keep an eye out on. Again, well known varieties have well known results. something you might ask about with sepcialty crabapples. granny smith is flowering group 3, but needs very little cold hours. Enterprise need about 400. Golden delicious could be an issue by you possibly it needs 600-700 hours. This can be different than what zone an apple grows in. You need to look at both zone and chill hours. There is an inhibitor hormone that fades out somehow on apple trees, once the hormone is to a low level, the tree can start budding.

 

[White Oak]

I'm no expert just basing things on what I'm observing. In my area it appears Pears definitely do bud out earlier than Crabs or Apples. Normally in mid March is when the Pears bud out around here....I took a ride to town today and the Bradford or Cleveland pears that line the streets were already budded out with white blossoms !. This is several weeks earlier than normal , while this winter has been A LOT warmer than usual , there is still a possibility of frost up until the end of March. So far My crabs and apples all look dormant .

Funny you mention that , I'm planting one Liberty and 2 Enterprise apples in the front yard this year. I have two existing Granny Smiths and they will supposedly pollinate the Liberty,,,,I have some crabs also in the vicinity so hopefully they pollinate the Enterprise

I have Whitetail Crabs "Top 3 trees" planted ( 30-06 , Droptine, Crossbow) they are self fertile....however they are only rated for zone 4-8 so probably won't work for you.

 

[bigboreblr]

I'm no expert just basing things on what I'm observing. In my area it appears Pears definitely do bud out earlier than Crabs or Apples. Normally in mid March is when the Pears bud out around here....I took a ride to town today and the Bradford or Cleveland pears that line the streets were already budded out with white blossoms !. This is several weeks earlier than normal , while this winter has been A LOT warmer than usual , there is still a possibility of frost up until the end of March. So far My crabs and apples all look dormant .

Funny you mention that , I'm planting one Liberty and 2 Enterprise apples in the front yard this year. I have two existing Granny Smiths and they will supposedly pollinate the Liberty,,,,I have some crabs also in the vicinity so hopefully they pollinate the Enterprise

I have Whitetail Crabs "Top 3 trees" planted ( 30-06 , Droptine, Crossbow) they are self fertile....however they are only rated for zone 4-8 so probably won't work for you.

Terry had some droptine and 30-06 on antonovka I planted up north in Dec. I'm going to graft droptine and crossbow on dolgo and B118 to give it a try. Trying big dog, kerr, and maybe chestnut as well. got transcendent, american crabaaple, and dolgo Im trying just rootstock only too. If simple works........

 

[White Oak]

Terry had some droptine and 30-06 on antonovka I planted up north in Dec. I'm going to graft droptine and crossbow on dolgo and B118 to give it a try. Trying big dog, kerr, and maybe chestnut as well. got transcendent, american crabaaple, and dolgo Im trying just rootstock only too. If simple works........

Droptine has been the fastest grower out of all the crabs I ever planted

 

[bigboreblr]

Deoptine will be pretty good I guess. Thinking crossbow or kerr will be one to keep going up there. They claim they make sturdier and compact branch pattern.

 

[Mozark]

I have one chestnut crab, semi-dwarf from stark, appears to be on m111(?) . It has been the earliest blooming variety i have, by far. It was planted in 2016 and has only produced enough apples to tell it is true to type. Gets frosted/froze every year during bloom, it is already at bud split this morning. It gets a stay of execution only because of the bee hives. Just over thirty fruit trees in this plot ( apples, crabs, pears ) nothing else even close.

 

[bigboreblr]

Chestnut is off the list for up north..... Hoping a Kerr scion sources pans out. Everyone is out of it.

 

[Lucky_P]

I've got over 30 pear varieties here. Some have been in bloom for 2-3 weeks. Some just now showing some white, and a few that have not yet broken dormancy. They've all been growing for 20 years or more, so 'acclimated' to my site/climate, with no influence from wherever the scions came from.
Crabs are just now beginning to break bud.

 

[bigboreblr]

mozark,

As per Stark, unless stated otherwise its on M111.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Live near Tallahassee, FL in zone 8b and my pears definitely wake up before my crabapples by a number of weeks, and even being as far south as I am I've still had the pears get zapped by March frosts... but... I don't see it as crabs or pears being better than the other, as in the years the pears avoid frosts I get TONS of production and way more mass on the ground than with grape-sized crabs. And my pear trees definitely have grown considerably faster than my crabapple trees and have required less care / suffered less from disease issues and stresses.

 

[bigboreblr]

big bend,

with pear trees 30 and 4 ft tall, you dont need a rifle to get a deer, just let one of them monsters whack a deer on the head. Got gin, keifer, bartlet, and seckle scions coming. Deer can enjoy them, but I got them to add sweetness to hard ciders. Not sure what I should of got, but guessing the gin pears are good for making squirrel stumble........

 

[BrushyPines]

Live near Tallahassee, FL in zone 8b and my pears definitely wake up before my crabapples by a number of weeks, and even being as far south as I am I've still had the pears get zapped by March frosts... but... I don't see it as crabs or pears being better than the other, as in the years the pears avoid frosts I get TONS of production and way more mass on the ground than with grape-sized crabs. And my pear trees definitely have grown considerably faster than my crabapple trees and have required less care / suffered less from disease issues and stresses.

View attachment 50619

Is that a kieffer pear?

 

[bigbendmarine]

Is that a kieffer pear?

Far as I know, it is -- what the tree was sold to me as (actually have 8 of them planted). Some of the pears from the trees are even a bit bigger. Definitely hard pears, though thankfully they do have decent flavor when ripe.

 

[ng270]

Kentucky, 6a/6b at my doorstep, this past weekend.

Some seedling crabs looked like this:

Other seedling crab varieties showed very little bud swell whatsoever.

Blue Hill Harvest pears were the farthest along of my pears: (That green in the background is another seedling crab)


Olympic pear and Keiffer were also breaking bud, but not quite so far along as the Harvest in the pic above. Other than the Keiffer, all of my European pears were still looking to be sound asleep. Same for all of my grafted apples (purchased as grafted bareroots). Last year I topworked a couple of seedling crabs to Enterprise, and those scions had very small leaves this weekend while the parent trees nearby that I cut those scions from still showed virtually zero bud swelling.

So at my place and based on my very limited sample size and experience, the answer to the pear vs crab question is "It depends" (on many variables).


As usual, my grafted plums were well in the lead (in the background, Ruby Queen showing mostly blooms, Methley both leaves and blossoms):


Ruby Queen:

 

[White Oak]

Well we had a late frost here this morning in Virginia zone 7. I see where it killed a bunch of flowers, My pear trees in my tree plot have been in blossom for at least the last 2 weeks....I'm no expert but I reckon this frost will ruin the pear crop. If that's the case I'll be planting only crabapples from sources in PA like Blue Hill & Whitetail crabs and out west like Midwest deer trees from now on. They seem blossom out later and possibly more tolerant to frosts compared to pears....if this crop is indeed ruined

 

[b116757]

Zone 6b none of my trees are blooming yet but this spring has been a bit cooler than most we had a hard freeze this weekend hopefully it keeps the trees asleep a bit longer than normal and out of late frost danger.

 

[Lucky_P]

24 here yesterday, 17 this morning. Pears that were in bloom are now brown. Betting any that had opened flowers at this point will not be producing any fruit this year.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Here in North Florida, mine have been pretty much in full bloom this past week.... weather sites say we hit around 35 this morning and will do so again tonight... after that, looks like it will turn hot again and we won't likely flirt with 30s again.

I'm either going to have a bumper crop... or... don't want to even talk about the other opion... in the same boat for wild blackberries on my place as well. Pictures I took from my tractor yesterday...