NOVEMBER 2025
CELEBRATING 146 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
THEGROWER.ORG
THE LONG VIEW
A pear revival thanks to fire blight resistance and storability
This aerial shot puts the 2024 planting of three acres of Happi pear into the context of the orchards of Manitree Fruit Farms, Blenheim, Ontario. The tender fruit industry has high hopes for this new pear variety that has fire blight resistance, matures mid-season and stores well under controlled atmosphere conditions. Photos by Jeff Tribe.
KAREN DAVIDSON For Rusty Smith, growing pears has been a lifelong endeavor -- 60 years and counting. The 82-year-old tree fruit grower is a legend in Ontario. Part of his legacy will be the Happi pear (HW624). In spring 2024, he planted three acres of the HW624 pear at Blenheim, Ontario’s Manitree Fruit Farms. This was the fifth year of planting the new cultivar which matures 10 days later than a Bartlett, but with the familiar red-blushed skin. “I first heard about this pear through Gene Penner at the Canadian Fruit Tree Nursery and Matt Ecker, vicepresident of sales at Vineland Growers’ Cooperative,” recalls Smith. “We have some open ground to plant new pears, but the first question was whether there is a market for them. There’s no point in growing them without a
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market.” With assurances from Vineland Growers’ Cooperative, Smith proceeded with planting in rows 12 feet apart and five feet between trees on wire support so that lateral limbs can grow at the proper angle. The clay loam soil has proven to grow pears well. “Harvest was shockingly light this fall,” reports Smith’s son-in-law Brian Rideout. “Mother Nature is a cruel jokester. This year, fruit size was down considerably due to drought and this affected volumes. We have seen yields in the past as high as 30 bins per acre.” It’s considered to be a mid-season maturing pear. Normally, that would mean a harvest time of early September, but harvest 2025 started in late August. The trees came from Canadian Fruit Tree Nursery, Jordan Station, Ontario. Gene Penner, a grower for the company, explains that the variety was bred by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and is
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managed by Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland). Vineland has engaged Stemilt Growers LLC (Stemilt) and the Associated International Group of Nurseries (AIGN) who will contribute their expertise to commercializing the Happi pear around the world. Stemilt leads these efforts in North America. The variety’s resistance to fire blight and pear psylla are key characteristics that are attractive to growers. Long road to commercialization According to the website of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, ‘HW624’ arose from the controlled cross of ‘Harrow Sweet’ and ‘NY10353’ made in 1988 by Dr. D. M. Hunter at the AAFC Research Station in Harrow, Ontario. Continued on page 3
Focus: Seed & rootstock
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