Maybe you want to go with tennosui, Ayers, Tennesee,. They're interspecific hybrids and are blight tolerant and some say Tennosuiis immune to FB. But I'm up in michigan. What are your chill hours?

I'm in San Antonio, pretty close to zone 9 on a map, and I'm looking at 300-700 chill hours, depending on the number of cold fronts that make it down this far.

(Lemme put it to you this way. I've had tomatoes in the ground, completely unprotected since mid-January, and they're getting big!)

Check out Tennosui, as it's grown as far down in houston.
From NCGR Corvallis,
"Tennousi - Hybrid cultivar, low chill, fire blight resistant. Open pollinated seedling of Tennessee possibly pollinated by Hosui. Developed by Harris County, Texas extension agent Bill Adams, who collected seed of Tennessee about 1992. The only pear flowering nearby at the time was Hosui. Tennousi may be immune to fire blight. In 20 years it has never become infected in Natelson's orchard in Houston. Fruit large, uniform, round like Hosui, but with European pear texture and flavor; Ripens well on the tree; Does not oxidize when cut. One of the best pears for the Houston area. May be self fertile. Tree requires 550-600 chill hours."

Tennessee, a parent of tennosui is 500 hrs.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/53581500/catalogs/pyrlowchill.html

That does sound great, but I'm looking for a dynamic duo for a crisp, butterscotch-y Shinko, and I'm really unclear what the bloom and harvest schedule will look like and if the two will successfully bloom at the same time to pollinate.

Do you know if some of the more common fireblight-resistant oriental hybrid varieties will bloom at the same time?

These should overlap in their bloomtime quite well.

I've never noticed a butterscotch flavor in Shinko; Chojuro, yes, but not Shinko.
Tennosui certainly worth considering. Pineapple is good; Dabney would be another sand-pearXEuro hybrid that gets better reviews than Keiffer(which I do like).

The Tennosui is considered to be self-fruitful, so you don't have to sweat the cross pollen stuff for it. It can get some fire blight, but if and when that would happen, the blight only travels a few inches down from the tip and stops there.

Keiffer and Pineapple are both excellent cooking and keeping pears, which I strongly prefer to fresh-eating. We're cooking pear people, mostly, (excepting the crisp Asian pears, naturally).

Also, both Pineapple and Keiffer are widely available everywhere I roam, and have strong marks for fireblight resistance! I'm favoring the Keiffer, for sure. It's an American classic, and holds up well to cooking and preserves.

Thanks for the responses. I'll keep an eye out for these varieties on payday.

It's good to know what will work.

I wish the A&M agricultural extension had more information than just "plant two varieties" because I've read horror stories of bloom times that just don't overlap, and there isn't a lot of information about cross-pollination of Asian varieties!

GRIN in Corvallis has some great information. Here's a link that might help you figure out bloom time over-lap.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pear Trait: FULL_BLOOM (FULLBLOOM)

That would be a very helpful site if I had any comprehension of what in the heck any of the numbers meant. Is there a legend, somewhere?

If you are going to get the Shinko, a good pollinator is Shinseiki. They bloom at the same time in my yard and my son-in-law's yard (both Houston). The shinko is good as long as you don't get too much rain near ripening. They will be bland with the rain.....dry periods good. Shinseiki is better in my opinion, but it needs a pollinator. Shinko fruits without a pollinator, but much more fruit with a pollinator. Shinko does get blight....I lost mine after about 8 years due to blight....it was bad that year.

I replaced my shinko with Tennosui. First time fruiting last year. Was not impressed with fruit. Mine were not crisp and low flavor. Tree may still be too young. I prefer crisp pears and my favorite is Southern Queen, sweet, flavorful and crisp. I may replace my Tennosui with it's sister, Southern King if the fruit don't improve.

The Akers (acres) Home pear is very good. It is excellent flavor and sweetness after a week or two off the tree. No problems with blight, but it does have rot problems. You may have to spray.....don't know about San Antone. I think the rot problem may be why it is not pushed much anymore here, but it is excellent. I pulled mine due to rot and it is a melting pear and I like crisp.

If you click on a link to a specific year's list of accessions you will see the day of the year that it bloomed. Each year they will bloom at a slightly different time but you can get a general idea of what blooms at the same time as each other.

In 1987 Shinseiki and Chojuro were in full bloom on day 90 in Corvallis, but in 1990 Chojuro was in full bloom on day 94 and Shinseiki was in full bloom on day 96.
If you have Belle Lucrative, which was in full bloom on day 91, and Beurre Bosc, which was in full bloom on day 103, pollination might be less likely.

It's an awesome site and you can tell that Joseph Postman puts a lot of work into it. I haven't found other Repository sites to be nearly as detailed. It takes a while to get a grip on the info just because there is so much in there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Repository Home Pages

I got the Shinko in fine, at last, and not a moment too soon. It was hard to find one, surprisingly, but I can only assume people bought them before I could get them!

I'm going to put the next one in after the Shinko establishes, next autumn. (I'm expecting a rough, dry summer, and I'm going to get ready for nasty water bills instead of buying another big tree!)

Not that anyone was interested in an update, but there it is. Asian Pears at the grocery store are $4 each. A tree is 19-25 dollars. Even with watering and occasional spraying, that makes economic sense, to me.

Southern Bartlett and Acres Home have worked for me out here in Phoenix. Both roughly seem to need around 300-400 chill hours and bloom at around the same time. Both are euro type pears. I have them in huge pots because anything grafted on OHxF333 fails to work in our fairly alkaline and clay based soil out here, and unfortunately, that's what I got them on from Dave Wilson.

On the Asian front, Shinseiki, 20th Century, Shinko, and Hosui all tended to bloom at around the same time after a few years in the ground (on Betch) -- give or take a week.