Historic Pear Preservation at the Maine Heritage Orchard

January 15, 2025

By Lauren Cormier, MOFGA Orchard Assistant

While the past season was a bit of an off-year for fruit production at the Maine Heritage Orchard, the orchard’s five bearing European pear trees, each planted in the spring of 2015, had a dozen or so fruit. These oldest pears are Buffum, Doyenne Boussock, Louise Bonne d’Avranches, Beurre Clairgeau, and Duchesse de Berry d’Eté. The younger pears, mostly planted on the far side of the pond in 2021 and 2022, are coming along despite growing in dense, heavy soil in the lowest part of the orchard. So far, they appear to be tolerating the soil conditions and many are even thriving. There are currently 18 pear varieties in the Maine Heritage Orchard as well as a few pears in the South Orchard at MOFGA’s Common Ground Education Center. Aside from some disappointment around an overall lack of fruit last season, there were some notable developments in our pear preservation effort.

In February 2024 we received a generous gift of scionwood consisting of 35 different pear varieties historically grown in Maine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Oregon. The repository has one of the world’s largest pear collections. The idea for a large scion order first came about when several staff from the USDA-ARS apple collection in Geneva, New York, attended the Common Ground Country Fair in 2023. They offered us an incredible opportunity to choose 150 apples and 50 pears from the USDA. The pear list we created consisted mostly of varieties listed in the oldest Maine Pomological Society records from the latter half of the 19th century. It also included parents of these heirlooms, some of the oldest pear selections in the world. While only 35 of the 50 varieties on our list were available, we were able to get some very rare varieties that are no longer obtainable through the nursery trade. In April, most of the pear scions were grafted at North Branch Farm in Monroe where they will be grown for two years in the protection of a nursery. In the spring of 2026, the pears will be planted at the Maine Heritage Orchard, North Branch Farm, and a few other orchards for trial.

Winter Nelis pears
Winter Nelis pears from North Branch Farm, grown from USDA scionwood. Photos by Lauren Cormier

In addition to propagating pear varieties from the USDA, we continued our work identifying some of the oldest pear trees around the state. In early June, just after the trees leafed out, we sent a second batch of foliage samples for DNA analysis to the National Clonal Germplasm Repository. The first batch of samples went out June of 2022 when the dataset was still being constructed. Genetic analysis for pears utilizes simple sequence repeat markers and, more recently, single nucleotide polymorphism-based genotyping methods. Through the latest advances in these technologies the entire pear pedigree is currently being reconstructed. In the past we only had an educated guess as to the pedigree of a pear cultivar, whereas now there is scientific evidence for many previous unknowns as well as duplicates thought to be different varieties. Both methods of analysis are used to determine whether pear samples from old trees in Maine match DNA fingerprints of varieties at the USDA-ARS pear collection. They are also used to find pedigree for the pears that are unique, if the samples don’t match any cultivars. Similar to the apple DNA results we receive from Washington State University, the analyses are always exciting but not necessarily what we had hoped for.

One surprising result came from a grafted branch on the enormous 250-year-old seedling pear at the historic Jonathan Fisher house in Blue Hill. It was thought to be St. Germain based on an old orchard map at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. There is only one old pear tree on the property, and it’s located next to the house. We were excited about the possibility of the branch being St. Germain because it would have been the first one found in Maine. When I first visited Jonathan Fisher’s pear tree in October 2023, I noticed that the pears were small, round, and practically inedible, nothing like St. Germain. The majority of the massive tree was clearly a seedling rootstock except for one lower branch extending out from the trunk. This branch had different foliage from the rest of the tree and, even though it didn’t have any fruit on it during my visit, it was obvious the branch was grafted. We were hopeful it would be a match with the St. Germain in the repository, but after months of waiting in suspense the DNA result came back as Clapp’s Favorite, one of the most common pears found in 19th century orchards. St. Germain must have been grafted elsewhere, or maybe even grafted onto a different branch of this same tree that didn’t survive into this century.

Seedling pear
The 250-year-old seedling pear at the Jonathan Fisher house in Blue Hill, with one grafted branch of Clapp’s Favorite.

While we still haven’t found a St. Germain in Maine, I was fortunate enough to discover an old heirloom pear, Winter Nelis, while exploring this past fall. According to historic records, this exceptionally winter-hardy variety was widely planted in Maine throughout the 1800s. After years of not finding Winter Nelis anywhere, I found it in two different locations on the same weekend. One Winter Nelis is near a house built during the late 1700s in Vassalboro and two others are in an ancient apple orchard in Biddeford. Winter Nelis has long been considered a high-quality late-season variety, typically ripening in November in the Northeast. With scions obtained through the USDA some years ago, Winter Nelis has been reestablished in a few orchards in Maine and I had enough familiarity with the fruit to identify the 19th century trees. This winter we’ll return to collect scionwood for propagation and eventually Winter Nelis will be planted in the Maine Heritage Orchard.

While it’s fun to search for pears, there’s some urgency in tracking down old varieties. Pear trees are cut down every day for all sorts of reasons, and even the world’s largest pear collections, like the National Clonal Germplasm Repository, are at risk from increasing pressure from diseases like fire blight. It’s essential we continue to propagate heirloom varieties and trial them in as many locations as possible. The more widespread a variety can be distributed, the less likely it will be lost: as might be the case with a number of pears that originated in Maine during the 1800s, like McLaughlin, Fulton, Goodale, and Eastern Belle. Any of these 19th century varieties could still exist today, but they are likely reaching the end of their lifespan. It’s an important time to take notice of old and unusual pear trees in our communities. It’s still possible to find a lost variety — and it might be the last opportunity before it’s too late.Please note: The Corvallis gene bank supports academic research and breeding programs. At this time, they do not perform DNA testing or supply scions for home gardeners. We respectfully ask our readers to please not contact them about these services. Information about their distribution policies can be found on the ars.usda.gov website.

This article originally appeared in the winter 2024-2025 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener.

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