Best tasting Pear!

[Paulieb]

Hi all,

Quite simply....What is the best tasting variety of Pear?

I know its subjective but I do like pears, but I've never really had a favourite variety, so suggestions would be good.

I was planning on purchasing maybe 4 apples to grow as cordons/minarets in a small space in the garden. Now I'm wondering whether to get 2 apples and 2 pears, or work out how to increase the area to go up to maybe 6 trees.

So secondarily, would these 'best' tasting pears be affected in any way being grown on a dwarfish rootstock?

[FB.]

Pears need the right growing conditions to taste good.
In cooler and duller parts of the UK they may need the warmth and shelter of a South-facing wall to produce good fruit.

My personal favourite pear, in my climate, is Doyenne d'Ete, grown on a seedling pear rootstock (very vigorous rootstocks seem to improve fruit quality in my soil).

Firstly it ripens very early, which is much appreciated after eating stored fruit for the first six months of the year - the first fruits ripening in mid-late July and the last fruits ripe in early-mid August in my climate, the ripening time varying with the season.

Secondly, the taste - in my soil/climate - is superior to any other pear that I've tasted.
Fruit is small - often not much larger than a golf ball. Flesh tastes sweet with a little balancing acidity and plenty of rose-flavour hints and other aromatics. Very "more-ish" but pears are quite high in fibre and if you eat too many pears you'll be spending a lot of time sat on the toilet the next day.
Flesh is soft and only moderately juicy - storage quality is poor; degrading to a mashed-potato texture after about a week after picking and often rotting within a fortnight.

Skin is quite thin (suffers some wasp damage) yellow coloured with small brown dots and a "robin-breast" appearance of red on the sunny side.

Actually, it's possibly the finest-tasting fruit of any kind. The blackbirds agree too - windfalls lay in the grass no more than an hour or two before being devoured, and some fruits are eaten off the tree with the birds just leaving the stalk.

[Paulieb]

Pears need the right growing conditions to taste good.
In cooler and duller parts of the UK they may need the warmth and shelter of a South-facing wall to produce good fruit.

My personal favourite pear, in my climate, is Doyenne d'Ete, grown on a seedling pear rootstock (very vigorous rootstocks seem to improve fruit quality in my soil).

Firstly it ripens very early, which is much appreciated after eating stored fruit for the first six months of the year - the first fruits ripening in mid-late July and the last fruits ripe in early-mid August in my climate, the ripening time varying with the season.

Secondly, the taste - in my soil/climate - is superior to any other pear that I've tasted.
Fruit is small - often not much larger than a golf ball. Flesh tastes sweet with a little balancing acidity and plenty of rose-flavour hints and other aromatics. Very "more-ish" but pears are quite high in fibre and if you eat too many pears you'll be spending a lot of time sat on the toilet the next day.
Flesh is soft and only moderately juicy - storage quality is poor; degrading to a mashed-potato texture after about a week after picking and often rotting within a fortnight.

Skin is quite thin (suffers some wasp damage) yellow coloured with small brown dots and a "robin-breast" appearance of red on the sunny side.

Actually, it's possibly the finest-tasting fruit of any kind. The blackbirds agree too - windfalls lay in the grass no more than an hour or two before being devoured, and some fruits are eaten off the tree with the birds just leaving the stalk.

Sounds delightful, even including some of the negative points (poor storage, and too many pests).

I've been reading a lot of good things about Duyenne du Comice and Beth, in terms of flavour, but not a clue about any other aspects of growing these varieties, or any pears for that matter.

It might be just a case of sticking in a couple of cordons and see how it goes for a few years (which I'm happy to do).