Apricots and Pears

[Larry T]

I see that apricot and pears trees are for sell in Honokaa which is a lot cooler than here. Does anyone grow Pears or Apricots in HPP?

[Larry T]

I guess no one has these tree in the HPP area. Do you think he has trees but they product no fruit? A lot of fruit trees require cold weather to set fruit. Any guess's?

[james weatherford]

...a guess...

Mauka Hamakua may have places that stone fruit (apricots, plums, etc) can produce -- maybe.
Same for pears (a 'pome').
Certainly does take cool weather to allow stone and pome fruit to have a dormant period.

In HPP? All I can say is that I would not count on anything from cool-weather fruit trees in a pure tropical environment.




James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park

[Larry T]

Thank you James. That was my guess also.
Your plumeria are doing great and about to bloom again.
Bill

[Hotzcatz]

Hood pears require 1-200 chilling hours to produce fruit AND need a pollinator. You could try planting the FloridaHome variety alongside. It requires 3-400 chilling hours so it isn't likely to produce much fruit but it should pollinate the Hood pear tree.

A "chilling hour" is temperatures below forty five degrees, so technically Paradise Park doesn't get any chilling hours but you may get a bit of fruit from a low chill variety of fruit tree. At 400 foot elevation along the Hamakua Coast, I get peaches from Florida Prince and Eva's Pride peach trees.

I've ordered the Hood pear as well as the FloridaHome pear and a Mohawk pecan tree from a mainland nursery to try those varieties out to see if they will set fruit. If they don't work at my elevation, we can relocate them or air layer a new tree to relocate to my friend's house up mountain where they probably will set fruit.

Here's some information on low chill varieties:
http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/gard...an_07.html
If you read the end of the document where they have some sort of "Utah" method of calculating chill hours, then our lack of forty five degree temperatures yet being able to grow some of the very low chill varieties makes sense.

I get my low chill varieties of trees from:
http://www.baylaurelnursery.com/
They are a mail order nursery which will ship to Hawaii.

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"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson