harvestman: I haven't done any real research with controls and replication of treatments. What I think I've seen is a big difference between my greenhouse and outdoors. In the greenhouse water use is only about 18-20 inches a year for highest quality stone fruit. Outdoors for pome fruit and pecan it seems hard to get on enough water, probably 2-3 times as much as the greenhouse. But that includes a cover crop outdoors. I'd think the NE would be between my greenhouse and our outdoors at about 25-30 inches water use for a shorter season. Pears do need hot weather, like 90F, for best eating quality. The NE may lack heat as much as sun. Commercial Comice production is centered in southern OR and they say their 90F+ days in late summer are critical for quality. So in the NE the south side of a wall might be ideal for pears. Peaches, nectarine, Jap plums, pluots, grapes, figs, persimmon, and pomegranite all like 90F plus in summer. Even sweet cherries are sweeter with some heat. What does that leave you with as ideally suited in the NE, apples, apricots, and a few minor fruits? This post was edited by fruitnut on Sat, Feb 2, 13 at 12:11

For commercial production I expect its pollination. There is a much bigger chance a variety will lose its pollinator and make it useless. I have a bunch of those I grafted myself. I have not had any problems with compatibility but some combos are supposed to be problematic. In particular Euro on Asian is more problematic than the other way. Most of mine are with both on rootstock but I also have some Asian on Euro that are doing well. One combo failed, Olympic on some Euro I don't remember now. I then put Olympic on a different Euro and its doing fine. Scott

Abscission point sounds good to me although not familiar, for some reason, but memory is no longer my strong suit. In my experience, the pears are ready when a sizable percentage do break off this way but local weather may affect this. I do think some experimentation is a good idea and its best not to harvest all pears at once until you are sure what you're doing. Also, if seeds are as dark as the ones in the photo above I think you could pretty much assume the fruit is ripe. For me, Seckel is very easy to know when it's truly ripe because of the distinctive change of color when ripe. If you leave Seckel pears on the tree after this point they will soften nicely on the tree and be ready to eat but not keep well in storage. I'm not sure, but the pictured seckel doesn't look mature to me. Seckel has so much sugar, though, that even pears picked early will be sweet enough- just not amazing. Probably store for longer though. Mine only last in the fridge for about 40 days.

Wait, I wasn't recommending DWN, how could I, Zeiger annoys me, breeding cloyinly sweet fruit without charactor and using corporate style promotion to push them. DWN is one of the main distributors of Zeiger creations. I'm not saying I hate pluots, of course they're good (but how much of an improvment are they over a real good Japanese plum, say an Elephant Heart) but I was always skeptical that they had any apricot in them and now years later I find that this has become the contention of breeders that actually have the creds to back thier skepticism. Zeiger bred the first peach I ever ate that I didn't like with White Lady and they continue to breed what I consider truly horrid peaches. OK, I exagerate for effect, of course. The idea that removing acid from fruit is invaribly an improvment belongs in the head of someone who eats Hostess Twinkies to satisfy their sweet-toothe. The same thinking ruined sweet-corn In selecting pears that you want to grow you have to decide if you like them crisp or soft. The person who likes soft Bartletts doesn't share my tastes. I like Bartletts crispy although I use to eat them soft. Didn't like them so much than because there are much richer pears with much more bouquet for soft eating such as Comice which you are lucky enough to be able to grow there. Anjou is also bland in comparison. Seckel can be eaten either crisp or soft or anywhere in between and has the virtue of ripening well on the tree, unlike many pears that makes it beginner friendly. It probably reaches the highest brix of any Europeans I've ever grown. (Zeiger wishes they'd thought of it) Seckel grows the most beautiful tree of any pear I've ever grown with a relatively spreading habit. Bosc is a great cooker and is extremely sweet and pretty easy to grow though like many pears it has a somewhat rank growing hapit, all weepy and zig-zagged. It ripens pretty well on the tree as well. Of course these are the most known varieties, but in my region there is a reason they are popular, we can't even grow a decent anjou here, in my opinion. It an many other varieties just don't get the brix up here in NY.