Kieffer pear

ClareBroommaker's picture

Anyone familiar with kieffer pears? Do you recommend it? Is it one of those highly gritty pears? Is it actually better canned than raw?

Blueberry's picture

One of the few that will grow in my part of the world. You will want to peel before eating. Pick while green and let ripen on the counter, lots of juice. Able to grow them without spraying, they like a soil ph above 6.5 I use a 4-8-12 fertilizer on a 30 year old tree gets a pint cup a year. If you apply to much nitrogen to pear trees they will get fire blight. Love to just peel and eat or peel and slice and place in a mixture of water and grape juice low heat for about 10 minutes. Then stuff my face.

t.

ClareBroommaker's picture

How tall would you say your 30 year old pear is? It's not grafted, is it? A tall standard? What would you say is the diameter of the trunk?

I have these questions because there are two pear trees, very tall, with maybe 9-12 inch diameter trunks on some urban property we are looking at for the possibility of buying for growing fruit trees. We had not known the trees were there when we went to look.

There were a couple things that made me think they might be Kieffers. First, the next-door neighbor told us with disdain that both trees were "canning pears" Second was their size. I read today that Keiffers get to about thirty feet, as these were. The fruit is small right now; don't know if it is close to mature, but the squirrels are going after it.

However, the two trees might not both be the same variety. Kieffers are self pollinating but some pears need a pollinator for best production, as you know, Blueberry. The two trees look different in their leaves. One has drastically larger, darker green leaves. However, it appears that the big-leaf tree got partly burned in a fire two years ago. I would say that was, effectively, like pruning it. So it now has not only bigger leaves, but nicer looking fruit than the other tree. The fruits are the same size, shape and color on both trees.

Do you harvest your pears in summer or autumn? We once foraged pears in a public park, but I don't remember what month it was. It, too, was a huge tree, and I think we might have just picked up the fallen pears....Anyway, I'd hope for autumn pears rather than summer.

Blueberry's picture

My tree is around 20-25 feet. I have 3 different kinds of pears that were planted at the same time. Pineapple, orient, kieffer they are on root stock. All 3 ripen in the fall. Planted a Baldwin about 5 years ago never know when it will ripen some years in mid June other years late August into September.

ClareBroommaker's picture

Okay, so this is the lot with the two pears. We're going to make an offer on it. DH thinks we should remove the pears as we would not easily be able to harvest from the trees. The fruit picker we have is not long enough to reach the lowest fruit, though we could put it on a longer pole. There will be no ladder climbing. I, on the other hand, think we can just take what falls (I'm happy to make perry wine if the fruit isn't pleasant for eating), or we could cut the trees back to a stump and let the secondary growth bear fruit, then keep the branches pruned, though I have not read up on what it takes to keep a pear pruned productively. What do you think of the idea of cutting them back to stump for re-growth? Will pears do that?

I don't like that crotch in the tree on the right anyway. It is close to the neighbor's fence and I would not want a spring storm to break half the tree and fall on that fence. This is the healthier tree, the one on the right. The one on the left is the one that was burned.

add photo: 
Blueberry's picture

Clare I just can not answer your question about pruning. You might check with the county agent or master gardener.

If you do FB, look for your local gardeners group. You may even find someone to pick the pears for you.

ClareBroommaker's picture

I don't use facebook but have been on nextdoor.com for a couple years. If we get to buy this lot, I will make a point of introducing myself to people of the neighborhood via nextdoor. It is not really my own neighborhood, but the closest we have been able to find vacant land that we had a chance of affording. It's just under two miles from my house. This neighborhood is in the same section of Nextdoor as my own neighborhood. We've met two immediate neighbors in person already. A salvager lives on the end of the block. I imagine I will do some business with him when we need stakes, bits of poultry wire and so forth. Maybe something to make a birdbath with.