Bluerose,
I have a link to NCGR that might interest you.
http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/53581500/catalogs/pyrlowchill.html

I have friends about a block away who inherited a yard of fruit trees when they purchased an adjacent property. Among the trees are Bartlett and Comice pears. They both fruit. We live about two short blocks from the back arm of Morro Bay.

That said, I've never thought the pears they've offered me have been especially good, although they don't seem to have a handle on how/when to pick and/or store (in the case of the Comice) the fruit.

I'm going to assemble some pear trees myself this Winter. I've chosen Moretini, Seckel, Warren, and Buerre Superfin.

My original plan included Bartlett (which I absolutely love--when it's good) and Comice, but I was persuaded to to try these instead. If you can place your trees where they won't get much Winter sun, that would help with the chill hours, but pears seem be a little forgiving.

I have 17 pear cultivars planted, and am just getting my first pears this season on a 1 tree I planted last season, and surprisingly, one I planted this last bare root season. I have 4 pears on my Seckel and 4 or 5 on my Rescue pear. One Seckel was ripe and has been eaten much to our delight, very delicious and sweet as sugar. Here are the varieties I have, and my zone is very close to yours:

Early
Seckel Pear
Comice Pear
Concorde Pear
Moonglow Pear
Fondante de Moulins Lille Pear
Pineapple Pear
Rescue Pear
White Doyenne

Late
Jiugnos Pear TM
Bella Di Guigno Pear
Butirra Precoce Morettini Pear
"Citron de Carmes Pear
Aurora Pear
Ubileen Pear
Doyenne de Juliette Pear

I would strongly suggest you contact either Tierra Madre Farm: http://www.tierramadrefarm.com/

Or, Trees of Antiquity:
http://www.treesofantiquity.com/

Tierra Madre Farms is in Santa Cruz, and Trees of Antiquity are in Paso Robles. Both in areas that understand your climate well. They are both absolutely fantastic companies, with excellent selections of fabulous heirloom pears, apples, and other stone fruits.
to discuss what they think will work well for your area. Pears and a little forgiving, like apples I've found, and will produce even in areas that perhaps as a little shy on chill hours for you. Seckel and Comice both should do fine for you. And, there are so man other, better choices than Bartlett.

Patty S.

Thank you for sharing great links and/or experiences. It is very encouraging to read them since it turns out my area only gets about 60 chill hour max. I may still go with southern bartlett and warren just to be a little safer. Has anyone grown either?

Thanks!

My goodness Patty--you must really like pears! I have a couple of multi-grafted trees, and those few are plenty for me.

I have a friend who is always sending me a box of pears from that famous pear place for Christmas, which all get ripe at the same time of course, and I'm sorry, but I can only eat so many pears! I usually end up putting them in vinegar to make pear-flavored vinegar. (and hinting at other times of the year that I hate it when all my pears get ripe at once because what can you do with them??? Somehow she never makes the connection :)

Carla in Sac

That's a lot of pears Patty. I'm still building my pear collection (10 types by spring) and have yet to taste any from my trees. Based on my recolection of the descriptions in Tierra Madre, I think you've got some of the pears in the wrong list. In particular, Jiugnos and Citron de Carmes are both pretty early, Jiugnos actually meaning "June" in Italian.

Also, I think Concorde is a pretty late pear. Whole Foods has had them for the last ~3 weeks and I've enjoyed them quite a bit. They are sweet (16-17 brix), and juicy, all while still being reasonably firm. They also had a wonderful fruity flavor with a hint of something like vanilla. I'm tempted to add it, but I don't see it available on either of the two site. The only place I see it is from Grandpa's Orchard, but I've already gotten my order from them this year (and it's on OHxF97, which is non-ideal).

I thought that maybe I was becoming a bigger fan of pears, so I tried some Bartlets and Boscs (previous favorite). The Bartlet were not so tasty (brix of 11-12 and unpleasant flavor) and the Bosc were OK (brix 12-14, a bit tougher texture (not a bad thing), and OK flavor). I know Bosc can be better, as I had some which reached 18 brix and were quite good, which I picked from a PYO around September 10. I'm guessing that both these pears were picked too early, in order to store until now.

Hah, I just got back to this message thread. Bob, I have my categories switched, lol! The first section are my LATE pears, and the second grouping are my EARLY pears. I have them like that on my spreadsheet, and I really should reverse the categories, with early first, the late below the early cultivars. My goodness. Carla, I love pears. My favorite deciduous fruit right next to cherries. I had 3 Seckels this last season, and they were delicious, very sweet and most definitely a "dessert" pear. Hoping for fruit on some if not all this year, I see a lot of fruiting spurs out there. Sadly, I'm going to have to replace my Aurora pear, it didn't make it. Now, my fear, is what caused the demise. We do have pockets of Fireblight out here, and the Aurora is not very Fireblight resistant. It doesn't look like Fireblight, but it never really got growing enough to display the distinctive symptoms. So, debating whether or not to give Aurora another try, or find another cultivar.

Patty S.

I thought I would mention one of the unusual ones here, just because I noticed that some you are in Southern California. (Disclaimer: If you're located in a different part of the country where disease is a big problem, you can stop reading now, you'll be wasting your time because this variety isn't going to grow where you live)

I read that Comice is supposedly more adaptable to lower-chill conditions than many other European pear varieties (though this is debatable, Gary Matsuoka of Laguna Hills Nursery stated he had only ever seen 1 crop in 25 years).

Assuming this is true, it would not be surprising. After lots of research done in another thread ( Any Pear or Apple varieties with an aroma like Quince? ) I have come to the suspicion that some European pear varieties may in fact have a quince ancestor. If you know anything about quince (Cydonia Oblonga), it is hard yellow fruit related to pear and apple, with a wonderful very fragrant aroma, but usually too hard, dense, and astringent to eat raw, so they are usually used in cooking. Quince is generally considered a lower-chill fruit than pear or apple, and was traditionally grown around the Mediterranean. Anyway, I believe it is the quince ancestor that gives some of these French pears their exquisite flavor, but these same pear varieties also tend to be a little bit hard, firm, and dense (perhaps a little like the fruit of a quince).

The French pear passé crassane, in fact, is actually claimed to have resulted from a cross between quince and pear (1885 by nurseryman Louis Boisbunel in the Rouen region). This hybridization has made this pear parthenocarpic, meaning it can produce fruit that does not contain seeds, without being pollinized. Being a direct hybrid between pear and quince, you can imagine that the pear is quite hard. It needs two months to ripen off the tree, but even then the texture is quite firm. But it does have unsurpassed flavor, appreciated by pear connoisseurs and aficionados. It is sometimes appreciated by expert chefs as well, and with just a slight amount of cooking it makes for superb dessert dishes.

While passé crassane is generally a rather obscure and hard to find pear variety in America, brief mention of it did appear in a 1992 L.A. Times article about pears growing in orchards of Julian, CA, (alternatively spelled Passe-Crassane), so I would imagine there are at least a few people growing it there. "Besides Julian's Apples, There Are the Pears"

The Arboreum Company nursery, located in Santa Clara County, also sells Passe Crassane, but they may not always have it in stock available to sell.

Passé crassane is extremely susceptible to fire blight, perhaps more so than any other pear, so I don't want to get anyone's hopes up who may live in a different part of the country. This will not be a problem in the dry climate of Southern California and the rest of the Southwest though.

The French used to export a huge amount of these pears to England and Germany, but because of fire blight issues the country later banned new plantings of this once-iconic variety. There are a small number of commercial plantings still being operated in Northern Italy, where they thrive in that climate. (and coastal Southern California has a Mediterranean-type climate, I will point out)

To summarize what I'm saying, those quince genes may make certain European pear varieties like passé crassane and Comice more suitable to grow in warmer dry climates, so they may be worth a try where you live, for anyone willing to experiment.

Update on my Passe-Crassane. I can confirm the growth of this variety is naturally very stunted, but paradoxically at the same time it seems to have vigorous growth. What I mean is that the tree seems to have a lot of energy which it is unable to put into growth of the trunk or branches, whereas the leaves look very big and healthy and fast growing. This probably also is going to mean it will be very productive putting out fruit. The little trunk and branches are gnarled and twisted, like an old quince tree.

Finally, a fruit forming on the little Passe-Crassane tree:

Southern California, zone 10

So it appears Passe Crassane can produce fruit in low chill conditions.

(It was a very mild Winter this year too)