Harrow Sweet vs Seckel

Guys,
I’ve grown several pears called seckle some highly disease prone and others somewhat disease resistant. Like kieffers the seckle scions and trees are the top mislabeled tree for me. To compound that I grow early seckle as well which has not had disease problems yet. I’m guessing any sugar pear gets called a seckle when it’s convenient. I’ve removed the grafts of all the disease prone types that were covered with lesions from the bottom of the branch to the top and all of mine are now nice clean wood and leaves. Worden seckle has also so far been a disease free pear at my location. Back to Harrow sweet for a second , keep in mind Kansas can be highly disease prone! Harrow sweet has been a good pear for me so far but Kansas is a rapidly changing place.

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HS seems FB prone here in Dallas. Only flowered for 2 years, so may be a fluke, but early results aren’t promising

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I’ve bought Seckel through the years form only two different nurseries, but on multiple occasions- Hilltop and ACN. Trees were identical varieties and look just like Seckels coming from commercial growers out west to our grocery stores. I assume that Seckels coming from suppliers that provide the commercial trade are likely all the same clone.

The clone of which I speak, is moderately susceptible to FB although I’ve only seen one tree killed by it. It is also susceptible to scab and psyla. My sister has a Seckel in CA coastal redwood country where there is lots of fog. It is regularly struck by FB that doesn’t really go anywhere- just small shoots killed.

I think it could also be about different strains of FB or different conditions that affect which trees are most susceptible.

One thing I can say, you learn a lot more about susceptibility issues if you observe trees growing at many different sites than at one- even sites not that far apart. Never fails to amaze me - the inexplicable variety of affects of any given site.

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Awe man, you guys are freaking me out with the fire blight talk with Harrow Sweet. I was sold but now need to stop and consider. I know I have FB from the Asian pears, but the trees seem able to grow past it. I snip out the worst of it and growth continues.

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I’m in Virginia, 7A and have 2 HS on OHxF87 from Cummins and a Seckel on an unknown “dwarf” rootstock from Stark.

On the HS, they have been good growers and precocious. They have shown what I believe to be some FB strikes on a few new shoots, but I’ve trimmed them off with a few inches to spare and they are both fine. It doesn’t look like it will be a major issue and I think I read about them being able to cap off the blight effected areas, which is what I’m seeing. It isn’t really fully immune, but seems to handle it okay, at least so far. I had a few flowers second year, but the little pears dropped, probably due to lack of pollination since nothing else was blooming nearby. This year (3rd leaf) probably about 100 pears formed on each of the 2 trees, but every single one of them had a worm hole in it while they were tiny so I took them all off and kept working on the structure this year. I also grafted some other pears into them and they all took. I’m looking forward to next year and will bag them as soon as they form this time. I’m not spraying yet.

The Seckel grew well from a whip in the first year, but then was dying back from the top by the end of the season. I found a borer that had entered about 6 inches above the graft, so at the end of the season, I cut it back below that. A bunch of shoots came up, but didn’t have much time to grow. I grew them out during the second leaf and it seemed to be recovering nicely. This year it flowered on 2 of the longer shoots and I cut off a couple and grafted Asian Pear scions to 2 other shoots - so it is now growing as basically a tiny little 4 trunk tree. I kept the most vigorous 2 shoots as Seckel and the grafted ones haven’t grown much, so I might cut those off next year and leave it as a 2 trunk little Seckel. The combination of the dwarf rootstock and Seckels naturally small size means it is not getting very big, especially after the setback from the borer. It isn’t even 4 feet high, but I did leave one of the little pears and harvested it today. Like the HS, I think it has pretty good branching angles. The single pear I harvested was pretty big for a Seckel, no doubt because it was just one pear. Good news is so far I don’t see any FB in the tree, so that is encouraging. I wonder if the dwarf rootstock helps keep it from having super vigorous growth that the FB will hit.

That is just my experiences with the 2 varieties a bit further south than you. I’ll be sharing the Seckel with the family during the eclipse to see if it tastes extra good.

The Seckel with the pear in a bag. I’ll probably spread the trunks next year, but because of the location, I’m just as happy to have this tree growing as a little “shrub” even though most people might be concerned that it is runting out.

The first chubby Seckel we harvested.

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That’s rather big for a seckle. Are you sure that’s what it is?

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After tasting it today, I would say I’m sure. It was the only pear on the tree and we’ve had a lot of rain which I think accounted for the size. Next year I expect to get more pears from the tree and the average size will no doubt go down.

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Seckels are not tiny pears when there are enough leaves serving each pear, but they tend to set heavy and commercial growers around here (and probably Rayrose down there) don’t thin them because they’d have to do it all by hand- gets up good sugar even when over set. On properly thinned trees they get about half the size of a Bartlett for me.

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This weekend I got out the Seckels I’d picked in August and kept in the fridge for a month. They now have a strong red blush, are soft, juicy, sweet, and very flavorful

I may finally get the hang of them

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