2024 - Again sprayed with Neem (next year do canola dormant spray). Blister mites still as issue but not quite as bad as last year. Many blooms full  open 5/17, a few days after Patten but in line with others. Moderate crop, some dits but look pretty good. Started dropping occasional fruit 9/20 - not ripe, seeds white, set on counter. Ate week later, still firm but has sweet flavor, seeds brown. Another eaten 10/2 about the same but less sweet and not much juice. Picked one 9/24 came off easy, others still quite attached. 10/1 few more dropped so picked last 7. Bronze tinged russet cover; some bug dits but overall pretty nice, good size.

10/13 sweet but still firm, dry, green under skin. Finally 10/26 soft and delicious, juicy, very sweet with some flavor. Skin a bit tough so hard to eat fresh, and it's pretty slippery peeled. Small core, little to no grit, might make good sauce. Nice pear. Steam juiced rest and it was OK if a bit light.

2023 - In April and early May I sprayed the tree with Neem hoping that would help knock back the blister mites. It didn't - later the leaves were badly infested. Had quite a few flowers but only a couple small mishapen fruit likely due to freeze during bloom, or maybe blister mites. Sprayed many times through season with comfrey/spinach ferment. Growth is good. Grafted one more Sierra on a small trunk-branch (and one Nova), both took but with minimal growth. I think that will be it for grafting. Will probably emove another Summercrisp (original variety) limb in next year or two. Thankfully no fireblight in tree.   

2022 - The tree did fine with no sign of fireblight. The original Summercrisp branches again had a nice set of fruit, pretty though of no remarkable flavor and a fair amount of grit. Unfortunately, many of the Sierra branches, now most of the tree, had a bad case of blister mites (and some black spots). Apparently they aren't of big concern but the leaves looked decidedly rough with their measles. I sprayed the tree quite often with comfrey/spinach brew (as I did the chokepear and any other tree having any difficulties). Next year I will spray with Neem early. But overall the growth was good and later leaves healthy.  Tied down many branches to shape less upright. Grafts all growing well, some quite vigorous.

Late May I noticed there were a few blossom on the oldest Sierra graft, and Summercrisp had a lot though they were already dropping petals while Sierra was just opening. But being the first blossoms I didn't think they would fruit. (Summercrisp did set a light crop though there were no other pear blossoms but those few just opening Sierra.)

Mid-summer to my surprise I noticed a half grown slender pear on the tree - it was a Sierra! Our first "regular" sized pear. It grew fine and though not very large it was certainly the queen of the pear world for me (the only other pears I had this year were some Summercrisps, rather small, rather blah fruit).

I waffled endlessly over when to pick it. Pears are very picky, and variable, about timing, with many rules and opinions shared by other growers and a lot of "well, it depends..." Finally I decided it LOOKED like it had turned a lighter shade of green as others had said it would when ripe. And I was pretty sure it felt just a little give at the neck. I finally picked it October 3.

Letting it set on the counter ten days I admired it daily until it finally got its day - the big anticipation soon to be over. Sliced, cored, we each took a piece ... it looked good, smelled good ... hurray! It tasted good! It was very nice. Smooth, sweet, just a little grit around the core, nice texture, nice firmness. It didn't take long to finish off this our first "real" pear, and we now look forward to many more. I will continue removing the rest of the original Summercrisp branches, and do more grafting to turn the entire tree over to this Sierra variety. 

2020 - End May grafted more Sierra scions on Summercrisp (1) e-n branch 2nd tier (2) n bottom tier (3) top. All, old and new, grew well, vigorous, healthy. Will graft 2 more next year, turning Summercrisp over to mainly Sierra, leaving a few originals for pollination.

Online Notes: (BC rpt) pick Sept 15-Oct 10. Skin smooth thin yellowish green. Flesh smooth fine very sweet juicy. Very productive. ... similar to Bartlett but generally of finer quality. Does not scab easily. (ars-grin) fairly vigorous tree with initially upright, then spreading and even drooping branches. The tree comes into fruiting early, and bears fairly regular and heavy crops. The framework and fruit spurs are hardy, considerably more so than those of Bartlett, and slightly hardier than Anjou. Requires fairly heavy pruning to avoid development of long and drooping branches. Normally the fruit set is heavy; thus early and careful fruit thinning is necessary. Fruit is large to very large. skin is thin, tender, smooth, green at picking, and turning yellow-green when fruit is eating ripe. flesh is juicy, very fine, smooth, with no or very few grit cells. The flavor is sweet and outstanding in quality. can be ripened to good condition soon after picking, and it keeps at 31 F until February. To reduce shrivel of skin, polyethylene liners are necessary in storage boxes., good canned product with mild flavor.