HARROW, a range of pears tolerant to fire blight

BREEDER – Harrow Station, Ontario (Canada) – Mr. Brooks, Oregon (USA) / EXPERIMENTAL TERRITORIES – Southern Europe / ORIGINS – 1960-1963

In 1963, a pear hybridization program is launched at the Harrow Research Station. His goal? Get cultivars resistant to Erwinia amylovora fire blight. The 1st varieties are created in the 80’s under the leadership of David HUNTER. Meanwhile, rootstocks crossings resistant to Old Home Farmingdale fire blight are conducted at the University of Oregon: the OHF hybrids are selected by BROOKS breeder in 1960. It is the FAROLD®. Star Fruits is then able to combine these varieties and the rootstock to propose pears tolerant to fire blight.

720

The number of kilos of pears that are produced in the world every second. This represents a harvest of 22.7 million tonnes of pears per year, worldwide. The leading producer of pears is China.
Discover our varieties of pears.

 

DEVELOPEMENT

The Star Fruits Solution

The compromised future of Harrow
In the early 90s, Star Fruits introduced pears  of the Harrow range developed by David HUNTER on the European market by starting the license management process. Thus it manages quarantine phases, evaluation orchards in level 1 and 2 phases, the CTPS registration phases, pre-multiplication phases, etc. But the program’s future is compromised by the widespread use of rootstocks sensitive to fire blight in the production chain in Europe, including the BA 29.

The choice of a new rootstock
To remedy this, Star Fruit chose to evaluate FAROLD® OHF on the European market from the 90s.  The license manager engages in a long process of experimentation to convince the players in the sector of the reliability of this new plant material. In the 2000s, the pressure of fire blight is increasing in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Star Fruit combines the Harrow varieties collection with FAROLD® revealing the most potential: FAROLD ® Daytor OHF 87 and FAROLD®Daygon OHF40.

RESULTS

At least Equivalent

Harrow varieties combine beautiful presentation and great texture fineness:

Harrow Gold
Harrow Delicious
Harrow Crisp
HW 623
HW 620
Harrovin Sundown

According to the most recent tests, the rootstock FAROLD®Daytor OHF 87 induces superior production to various witnesses, with adequate strength. The fruits obtained from this rootstock have a template, a maturity and quality equivalent to those of BA 29, with a potentially smoother and clearer skin.

MARKETING

Today, the association offers Harrow-FAROLD® plant material with at least a double tolerance. The agronomic results are of a very high level.

 

OTHER PARTNERS 

Nursery growers
Farmers

 

 

HARROW GOLD (2)