Chill Hours

[Ditchdigger]

Hi. New to this site. Used to go to the QDMA site, but since it is gone, have been looking for another forum. This one looks like a good one to find a lot of good information. Have a question on fruit trees. I live in south central Pa, zone 6 and have been planting improved kiefer, bartlet pear trees and noticed the kiefer have 400 chill hours and the bartlet have like 800. I understand the concept of chill hours and wonder if I'm going to run into trouble with my trees producing fruit because of staying dormant to long or not long enough? Thanks for any help.

 

[Neahawg]

You should be fine. Your biggest concern will be late frost killing your blooms. After that at some point your Bartlett will catch fireblight and what I've been told will die. I've never planted one just because of the problems I've read about with fireblight.

 

[dogdoc]

I agree. You should be fine. Low chill hours would be your biggest concern due to early blooming. Your Keiffer will be a great wildlife tree.

Glad you found us
Todd

 

[Ditchdigger]

Thanks for the help. I was wondering about frost due to early blooming. We had a frost/freeze in late May this year. Hit most of my trees. My Uncle has a bartlet pear in his front yard and it must be 30+ years old. Maybe I will get lucky and not get the fire blight. Glad I found you guys.

 

[dogdoc]

Thanks for the help. I was wondering about frost due to early blooming. We had a frost/freeze in late May this year. Hit most of my trees. My Uncle has a bartlet pear in his front yard and it must be 30+ years old. Maybe I will get lucky and not get the fire blight. Glad I found you guys.

I lost all my flowers last year--not actually due to a late frost but more due to a very early spring. We were blooming out in the 2nd week of March---and of course get a good freeze the end of march--and most my pears are Keiffers.