Max, a local community group asked me to compile such a list - see the link below for my thoughts. Generally I would say that your choices are good ones, and there are a few other ideas on my list below. I dried persimmons this year and they worked out very well. The astringent varieties dry better so I would get one of them if you mainly want to dry the fruits.

I put european pears on my list though toward the bottom. I'd like to hear how they did for you, it sounds like you didn't have much luck with them? The main problem I have had on my pears is pear leaf blister mite, and recently stinkbugs (which are problems to some degree on all fruits for me now).

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy fruits guide

Thank you so much Scott, it's funny how so many Chinese and Asian fruits do so well here, people should be really making persimmon and jujubes an industry here in the States, the Southeast certainly needs new/more different niches!

My 5 years of experience with Asian pears is that they're definitely precocious and that they produce mostly very good quality fruit without any sprays or other efforts toward pest management. I've had some pest trouble -- I think my only rot issues are caused by pest issues -- but I've had a whole lot of absolutely perfect fruit and very few pears that have more than just a bad spot (normally at the blossom end.) The only real I might not put Asian pears on your list is fireblight. I all but lost one tree to fireblight this year, but I'm still very hopeful that I can grow pears "faster" than fireblight will take them down. If I had it to do over again, I think I would plant my pears where the dew wouldn't sit on them as long in the mornings.

I think this echos what Scott said in the PDF, but I would definitely be inclined to disagree with the comment about pears (whether Euro or Asian) being "abysmal" as a no spray fruit. In any case, I think pears are surely much easier to grow no-spray than apples or peaches.

Although they're not trees, rabbiteye blueberries would be at the top of my list. Muscadine grapes are another great no-spray, perennial non-tree fruit, at least for formerly 7a central-western North Carolina (and I would assume even 6b Maryland??)

Most of us on this forum have been growing fruit for less than ten years. Pest issues sometimes don't show up for a long time and varieties on a site that don't require spray for years can become very difficult to grow with the appearance of a single new pest.

For me, Asian pears were easy at first, but as coddling moths increased I began to loose more and more fruit and now stink bugs are becoming increasingly present here just as they are for Scott. At least none of my varieties up here have been stricken by fire blight. Next year I may double my insecticide applications to harvest Asian pears- they may need summer instead of spring insecticide applications.

European pears were also easy for me at first before psyla and scab showed up. Now Bosc is harder to grow than any apple at many sites and Seckel is also harder than it used to be but varieties like Harrow Sweet, Harrow Delight, Aurora, Bartlett, Sheldon, and Dutchess seem less susceptible... so far.

Harvestman, I'm not familiar enough with the pests and diseases you mentioned to even know if you're talking about new exotic pests and diseases or endemic problems that balloon with time, but assuming at least some are of the latter type, I wonder if you could ever get back to the lower problem levels at a site if you got rid of your trees and started over with a year or two break in between. I'm not saying it would ever be practical, but I'm just curious. What do you think?

With psyla, they appear to be in the neighborhood now and they are an extremely common pest of pears that most commercial growers east to west have to deal with. I've not found them on Asian pears.

Psylla and scab have never shown up on my pears. Scab seems to prefer cooler climates. I don't know why I haven't gotten any psylla, its very common in the mid-atlantic. I get very little fireblight; it is my apples that I have big FB problems on.

Scott

I got no psyla for the first 18 years I grew pears here.

paw paw is easy, though bare root trees can be very difficult to establish. Apparently some people don't like the taste of pawpaw, but I think they're delicious! Try to get your hands on a fruit from a named variety next year.

Goumi is very easy and trouble free to grow. Around here (Eastern PA), the robins eat the fruit before it is ripe. the fruits are small with quite a large seed, so they are tedious to harvest and eat. I made Goumi jelly once, and it was OK, but nondescript.

Hardy kiwi grow well and are productive with no spraying, but they do need a sturdy support structure.

Mulberries are super easy to grow, though you may have to fight the birds for the fruit.

Alex

Alex

What, no one has mentioned Cornus mas?? Seems easy to grow here in WI.

Wildforager,
Check out the new varieties at one green world under Cornelian cherry.

Noogy,

I see that they have 2 new varieties, thats cool. Too bad they need to re-brand them all with their own trademarked name. Makes it a bit confusing when looking at Euro websites and the varieties that they have. Some at OGW are the same.

Scott's PDF file is really helpful reading. I live in the same general area, outside Washington DC, and will add a few comments.

Nanking cherries: you need two trees, they are tasty but small -- pea size. They ripen early and seem to avoid pest problems.

Sour cherry was not mentioned. I think the natural dwarf North Star is an excellent choice. I have had few problems with it. You will need to net it against birds, but it is such a small tree this is easy to do.

Squirrels will strip pear trees -- it happens to me every year. I have also had codling moth on my pears. This can be avoided by bagging, but that requires more work. I agree that Asian pears are easy to grow and start producing early. I have not had any major fireblight issues. Squirrels will also strip fig trees, if the birds have not ruined your crop first.

Persimmons are a big yes. But the earlier ripening ones, which means the non-astringent ones, do get hit hard by the marmorated stink bug (as does pretty much everything else that ripens, say, before late September). Late ripening astringent ones like Saijo are the way to go. I have had no insect or animal damage on these.

Scott does not mention berries. Blackberries are easy to grow though may need to be trellised. They are attractive to birds though.

Blackcurrants are easy to grow and do not appeal to birds or squirrels, or that matter, humans either when fresh, but they are superb as jelly and in various culinary applications.

Elderberries are easy to grow, but again are not for fresh eating. Birds love them.

Cornelian cherry are very slow growing.

Russian pomegranates are now being sold by Isons, the muscadine nursery. I received very nice plants for very reasonable prices this year. They may be sold out now.

ATP, my sour cherries get curculio worms if I don't spray.

How bad were the codling moths on your pears? I would get a few but not a lot.

Part of the problem with wanting to be no-spray is nothing is certain. Pears and sour cherries are probably better in a "maybe no spray" category, you could get lucky or lucky for awhile but its a crap shoot. Persimmons and pawpaws are more certain to produce something. Even when the stinkbugs did their best to damage my persimmons they made little overall impact compared to the destruction wrought on other fruits.

Scott

I know of several sour cherries trees in my area, many of which must be 20-30+ years old, i.e. more than enough time to develop problems if they're ever going to develop -- I have a tree on my own property that's probably 25' tall and 8-10" in diameter, and I regularly pick from a neighbor's tree that's substantially larger than mine, and I know other people that have picked for years from their trees -- and I've never seen (or heard of) insect/worm damage to any of them. Birds and late frosts are the only problems I've noticed. I would definitely put them in the no spray/low care category, although most of the trees I'm familiar with don't have fruit that I'd value as highly blueberries, Asian pears, kaki persimmons, figs, jujubes, muscadines, or even mulberries.

Scott,

I have had a little curculio damage on sour cherries, but not a lot. A couple of years ago I had a lot of codling moth damage on my Asian pears, but not so last year. As you say, if you don't spray it's a crap shoot. It's so hard to know what's normal nowadays with the weather so unpredictable. Last year my North Star sour cherry started to flower about the same time as my William's Pride apple, and they probably started to set fruit around the same time. I think the curculio much prefer the apple, and this relieves some pressure on the cherry, but this reasoning would suggest you should not be getting much cherry damage.