Cycle to becoming compost for next year’s crop
I have a soft spot for what may just be one of the hardest pears known to man.
Kieffer pears are in abundance right now, and if you live in St. Catharines’ north end, you’ve probably seen them dropping from loaded branches on boulevards and in parks. It’s the final step in their cycle to becoming compost for next year’s crop, and if you’ve accidentally been cuffed by one as it fell, I know your pain.
The Kieffer was once grown commercially for the canning industry because, if nothing else, it was resistant to the orchard-destroying disease, fire blight.
The heritage fruit’s ability to stave off the disease lives on in a new variety of pear that’s set to become the apple of growers’ eyes as a result. It’s one they hope consumers will love just as much for its flavour.
The AC Harovin Sundown pear will begin appearing in stores this fall for the curious to sample, have their appetites whetted and get tongues wagging before its official launch in 2015 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.
It’s the first pear bred in Canada, developed in Harrow and perfected at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre. But more than that “consumers are finally going to have a pear that tastes good,” said Mike Ecker, president of the Vineland Growers’ Co-op, which will market the Sundown.