anyone here have any luck with warren pear? From what i've read they are about the best tasting fire blight resistant pear around but have read dreadfull things about getting it to set fruit but plan on grafting some other varieties on it to see if that helps with getting bees to come to it and do there thing. Anyway, I ordered one and figured I would try it since that is one thing I don't have here on the farm. I've got a old kieffer pear tree my granddad planted when he was alive but mostly the only thing that eats those are the cows LOL. There terrible. What do ya'll think about seckel pear, magness, ayers, moonglow, maxine, potomic, etc? I've seen in a few websites saying that Anjou was blight resistant. Is that so?

I find that grafting a branch of Turnbull Giant Pear will make it super productive. I've got loads of Warren Pear by grafting Turnbull to it. Warren doesn't shed pollens, it is like the anthers are dead. Whereas, the Turnbull is shedding pollens a few hours after the flowers open, and are still shedding pollens after the petals have fallen. Turnbull is enough to pollenize my Harrow Delight and Comice as well.

There are very few true fireblight resistant pears, and one of them is the Ledbetter pear. The reason why the others seem to be fireblight resistant is because they bloom off season, or doesn't have nectars (thus bacteria won't colonize the flowers), doesn't have pollens to attract honeybees, so they seldom get contaminated. To test if they are true fireblight resistant is you introduce the bacteria to the pear, and most of the pears don't have resistance. Most have avoidance though.

There are a few fireblight tolerant pears, such as the Kiefer pear. It can get infected but able to survive it and still be productive.

A spray of copper sulfate or kocide every three days starting from first opening of petals to last petal fall will tremendously help control fireblight of pears and apples. To minimize spraying, there is a public spreadsheet program from Washington State University that determines the likelihood of fireblight outbreak and you spray when the treshold is about to be crossed.