That pear looks familiar but no name is coming. Pears usually do well with something like two weeks in fridge (not freezer!) followed by up to a week of ripening on the counter. Each variety varies a bit, some don't need any fridge time at all.

Scott

Thanks Scott, I am trying to figure out the brand so I can ripen them appropriately and then can them.

Those look like what I think is bartlett.. Scott you dont think its a bartlett?? The tree I bought, labled bartlett, produces nearly the same shape and color pear. Mine were picked early and green.

Could they be Packham? I've seen Packhams sold as Bartlett, and they are similar, with Packham having that "knobby" quality I see in your boxed pears.

Anjou?

The shape of the pear gives us some clues. The pears in the original posting are "ovate pyriform" or similar. This may be clapp's favorite if they are pale lemon yellow with red mottling.

Those necks are very fat.. not common. I would guess Duchess d'Angouleme, it has a fat neck and was popular in the past, and you say your tree is an older one. If you had an estimate of the age it would help narrow it down, for example it also looks a bit like Harrow Delight but thats not that old a pear so I am expecting it is not a match.

Scott

I have Moonglow and these look similar- fat necks

Thanks everyone. They are not Bartletts, the coloring and shape are not correct and I have compared them to multiple Bartlett examples.

Scott, all i have to go off of is the house it is planted next to was built in 1962, so I am thinking the tree is somewhere around that date.

Dan.NY, my pears do not have the same shape as your Bartletts, mine mostly have no necks while yours are well defined and a nice green. My pears grow with the rusty color over much of their surface area from the beginning, not just after they've been picked from the tree.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Based on the recommendations from you all, i have narrowed it down to Moonglow, Duchess d'Angoule, or maybe a variety of Hardy.

Harrow delight and clapps favorite are out because my pears have no red coloring, just the brownish-rust color. Packham's, like the Bartletts, have too pronounced a neck compared to my pears. As I said before, some have a pronounced neck but most are very fat with no obvious neck. Thanks for all the help so far, hopefully I will get to the bottom of this.

It's theoretically conceivable that you have some 600 possible varieties to choose from. It's far more likely the realistic pool of candidates is less than twenty, possibly under six.

Just picking which six? I'd find a couple of orchard growers and find out which varieties were the most common in your area sometime between 1955 and 1970.

Somewhere, I have a book titled, appropriately enough, Pears, published in Great Britain. Since you can never find the book you want when you want it, this is from memory: The most accurate guide in identifying pear cultivars is petiole length.

There is in fact such a book published in the same state and around the same time as the original poster's house was built: Hartman's excellent pear guide. The link is below to the PDF. Note that many of these pears were uncommon ones, it is all the pears grown at the experiment station there.

Moonglow is not in it, it was released in the early 1960's. I know that Duchess was a common pear in the west many years ago. If you look at ripening times etc you may be able to decide it is one of those two.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: Pear Evaluation

Thanks again everyone, you all are great

I can't help with the ID but I have learned a lot from the GRIN site. It's a perfect site to peruse when the winter sets in:

Here is a link that might be useful: NCGR-Corvallis - Pyrus Germplasm

The germplasm repositories are wonderful. Here's a picture from the pear collection in Corvallis this past winter. Each tree is a different variety with few exceptions for replacements.

Don't mind the tree shapes, they are grown for wood more than fruit.

Does it really matter? Is there that much difference in taste in pear varieties? Just eat them and enjoy. I think the common practice for most is to pick while green as soon as you see the first pear turn yellow on your tree. Then ripen them on the counter or put in the fridge first to hold them until you can eat or process them. For years I canned about 20 quarts a year from an unknown variety of pear tree that came with our first house by just setting the pears on the counter or on tables in the basement to ripen. I would pick them in batches every few days to avoid having them all ripen at once.I had never heard of putting them in the fridge first.
Northwoodswis

>Is there that much difference in taste in pear varieties?

Oh my goodness, yes!

I don't know what those pears are (if they are not Comice) but they certainly are not Bartlett.

Thanx milehighgirl for the link to that wonderful website.

Now if I could just find info on the so-called Harrow Delight pear grafted in 2006 which has produced at least a bushel on my Bartlett. I think it may be Harrow 606: the graft bears after Bartlett and not before. Am searching Ontario web sites for further information, and hesitate to ask sender of scion for more information. Have refrigerated these pears and want to try room ripening in about two weeks.