Anyone picked their Conference Pears yet?

[boundtothesoil]

I've never been that confident about detecting the slight softening of the neck of a Conference pear that is meant to indicate it is ready to pick, if not ready to eat. My pears look kind of ready, but I've read on the 'English apple man's site' that this season is a late one. Anyone have a fool proof method for timing picking just right?

[FB.]

Mine didn't seem ready when I looked a few days ago. Normally mid-late September. Even my Williams aren't ripe yet; they're usually ready late August.
Pears are generally best picked just slightly under-ripe rather than slightly over-ripe (they may be rotten in the core if over-ripe). A few "windfalls" suggests the crop soon needs picking.
Then put them on a sunny windowsill for a few days to finish ripening - the top of the pear (where the stalk goes) will "give" a little if you pinch it when the pear is ready. Those which you want to keep are best stored in the fridge. Not many of the pears available nowdays keep for long under domestic conditions.

[Nicos]

Mine aren't ready yet either.

[Lazy Gardener]

My pears look pathetic. Nothing like last year where I had a good crop of fairly large sized fruit.

[BiddyH]

Hi - been out again today as I have 2 conference pear trees that a neighbor cut right back a couple of years ago. I'm thrilled that they are fruiting again this year but no - they aren't quite there yet. Maybe next weekend....

[FB.]

My Conference still aren't ripe, but it's only around this time of year in normal years that they're ready.

This year, we had snow on the ground in April (usually snow doesn't lay on the ground for more than a few hours after February) so trees were two to four weeks late blossoming, so I expect most fruit will be two to four weeks late to ripen.
The cold spring was made worse by a drought summer, causing fruits to be very small on all the dwarf and medium vigour rootstocks; only MM111, M25, Pyrodwarf* and Pyrus communis produced fruit of normal size.
* Pyrodwarf, despite its name, is fairly vigorous and similar to apple MM111 in normal conditions but less drought tolerant than MM111.
Pyrodwarf is in-between "bush" Quince A and "full standard" P.communis. It tolerates sandier, chalkier, drier and more alkaline soils than Quince A.

[zazen999]

We haven't got Conference, we have Concorde but I took the 'few windfalls' advice and harvested the lot on Thursday. They are in a shallow tray in the poly for now. Really nice and big and red and a brill harvest bearing in mind how much I chopped off the tree last year.

[boundtothesoil]

I've took the plunge and picked a few kg of Conference pears three days ago. They aren't quite eatable off the tree, but the rate at which they are being 'necked' means that if I leave them any longer they'll all be damaged.

[FB.]

I forgot to mention that my Williams pears ripened about a week ago and have been in use for a few days.

[seneca196]

Just wondering how you folk have your conference pear tree set up in the garden and manage with pollination? Is it the only pear tree? If you don't mind me being a bit nosey- what kind of size and form do you have? Just wondering about growing conditions and the age old question "If you could grow only one pear tree?"
I'm considering the idea of one pear tree as a half standard, on QA (unsure of what) and perhaps getting a smaller one as a cordon, or maybe in a container. Would give me the most flexibility in terms of variety, pollination partners and chances of getting a pear! Most advice seems to suggest a Conference as the big tree would be best, supplemented by a smaller cordon or container tree. Any opinions?
thanks

[Martin H]

I picked all the pears on my Conference tree yesterday. They are still nice and firm but juicy. Mrs H likes them like this, I like them soft but they will finish off in the kitchen in a few days (only a few, the rest will stay in the fridge for a bit).

My tree is on its own at the allotment. One of my neighbours planted a tree this year but it's ... another Conference.

[seneca196]

conference is another of the "self-fertile, but can be helped by another pollinater" types, so it might be that it can manage on it's own. I was thinking about the possibility of getting self fertile varieties of different fruits trees and getting a partner in a container. It seemed a convenient way of having 2 trees without using up a lot of space. The container tree could be moved about to find ideal condition based on the growing season eg. sunny spot during spring summer, and a sheltered spot during winter.

I do like unripened conference pears. The harder the better. Reminds me of scrumping them, as a kid. Used to get through loads back then.

[orangepippin]

* Pyrodwarf, despite its name, is fairly vigorous and similar to apple MM111 in normal conditions but less drought tolerant than MM111.
Pyrodwarf is in-between "bush" Quince A and "full standard" P.communis. It tolerates sandier, chalkier, drier and more alkaline soils than Quince A.

Pyrodwarf gets its name because it is a dwarf form of Pyrus communis. There are conflicting reports of how vigorous it really is, but it is likely to be a bit more vigorous than Quince A.

The key point about Pyrodwarf is that it is a true Pyrus species rootstock, whereas the most widely used rootstocks for pears, Quince A and Quince C, are not. This should give fewer graft incompatibility issues, and I can see nurseries switching over to it increasingly for this reason.

[FB.]

Pyrodwarf gets its name because it is a dwarf form of Pyrus communis. There are conflicting reports of how vigorous it really is, but it is likely to be a bit more vigorous than Quince A.

My experience of Pyrodwarf compared to Quince A and P.communis is that it's in-between the two in vigour.
PD seems to be about three-quarters the vigour of P.com, whereas QA is about half the vigour of P.com.

I would classify:
P.com: standard
PD: half-standard
QA: bush
QC: small bush or cordon

I notice also that Keepers are using it for trees of the same size class of tree as above.

[FB.]

My Conference pears were picked at the weekend.
Williams were picked a couple of weeks earlier.
Concorde will probably be ready in a week or two.