Pears with Low-Chilling Requirements

• Pears developed for low-frost regions include Flordahome, Hood and Pineapple. These varieties flower early. Flordahome, a sweet and juicy pear, requires less than 400 hours of chilling and ripens in late July. Flordahome is self-fruitful to some extent, but will produce more abundantly when planted with a pollinator. Hood ripens in mid-July with large, yellow, flavorful fruit suitable for fresh eating. Pineapple is a hard-fleshed variety ripening in early August. Flordahome, Hood and Pineapple are pollinators for each other.
  
  

European Pears

• B.P. Morettini is a yellow-skinned fruit with a red blush on a vigorous, high-yielding tree. The soft flesh has a melt-in-the-mouth texture. B.P. Morettini blooms in mid-April and is harvested in early August. Super Red has dark red skin and white flesh. Super Red is the earliest maturing of red pears, harvested in mid-August, and is produced on a vigorous tree. Bartlett is considered the standard for pear flavor, with sweet white flesh. It is harvested in early to late August in California. Sensation is a red variety of Bartlett pear.
  
  

Asian Pears

• Several varieties of Asian pear are harvested early.Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images
  
  Sometimes call salad pears or apple pears, Asian pears ripen on the tree for fresh eating. Asian pears must be handled carefully to avoid bruising the tender skin. Ichiban Nashi matures early in mid-July with a large brown fruit. Kosui is a small, flat fruit with a sweet flavor, ripening a bit later than Ichiban Nashi in mid-July. Hosui, a very large fruit with a sweet flavor and juicy texture, ripens in early August. Twentieth Century is considered the best flavored and is the most popular of Asian pears both in California and in Japan. It ripens in mid-August, and the fruit stores well.
  
  

Antique Pears

• Some varieties of cultivated pears date back thousands of years. Many lack the flavor or texture expected of modern pear varieties, but their historical value and breeding potential keep them interesting to scientists and hobbyists alike. Petit Blanquet was known in French gardens by the middle of the 1500s. The fruit is small and sweet, but not juicy. It matures early in the season. Petit Muscat, maturing in June, has yellow flesh, and though not juicy, has a sweet, musky flavor. According to an 1801 publication by noted gardener Jean Mayer, this was the pear Supurba described by Pliny.