[gardeners] Keifer Pears - more than one
Lon J. Rombough (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 25 Jun 2001 20:48:07 -0700
One last note on Keifer pears. We had a good discussion of them on the
NAFEX (North American Fruit Explorers - see www.nafex.org) list and one
point that came up is that there is more than one pear with that name. VERY
briefly, about a century ago there were a number of different crosses
produced of Asian pears (which are highly resistant to fireblight) with
European pears, which are not as resistant, trying to get good varieties
with resistance to fireblight for the South. That's why some people have
Keifer that is relatively free of grit, and others have pears of that name
that are much more gritty. A lot of the selections are similar enough that
there has been considerable confusion, so one grower has a smooth type,
another, a gritty one, but both pears have the same name.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, more, plus word on my grape book at
http://www.hevanet.com/lonrom