Curé pear or Williams Winter pear

Synonyms: Williams Winter

The Williams Winter pear or Curé pear – a popular winter pear cultivar. It arose as a chance seedling. It was discovered in 1760 in the Frommentaux forest in France by the curate Leroy, who propagated it. The cultivar is zoned in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Armenia, and Central Asia.

It is a vigorously growing, long-lived tree with a broad-pyramidal, well-leaved, dense crown. Main branches grow from the trunk at an angle of 45-50°. Branch tips droop under the load of fruit. Bark on the main branches and trunk is gray and fissured; on young wood it is smooth. It fruits on 3-4 year old shoots, sometimes on 2-year-old shoots and on fruiting spurs.

Shoots are medium to sometimes long, of medium thickness, nodal, light brown. Bark on the upper parts of one-year-old shoots is brownish-brown with slight pubescence. Lenticels are medium-sized, sparse, oval, light gray. Buds are medium, pointed, conical, appressed, dark brown with gray scales. Shoot-forming ability is good. Leaves are medium-sized, broadly ovate or almost round, finely serrated at the margin, sharply serrate, with a short tip; the blade is leathery, thick, glossy, with margins slightly raised upwards and the tip bent downwards. Petiole thin, short, reddish.

Blooms early. Flowers large, white; anthers dark pink.

Fruits are above average, weighing 160-190 g or large, 200-250 g, elongated-pyriform, slightly asymmetrical, narrowing toward the calyx in the form of a truncated cone. Skin dense, smooth, matte; when picked green, at maturity becomes light yellow, sometimes with a small pink blush and numerous weakly visible subcutaneous dots. The variety is characterized by a rusty-brown stripe on the fruit running from the calyx to the stem. The pedicel is of medium thickness, long, thickened at the point of attachment to the branch, obliquely set, slightly curved, firmly attached to the fruit and there transitions into a fleshy protuberance. The cavity near the calyx is wide, shallow, often slightly russeted, smooth. Calyx open, large; sepals large, elongated, star-shaped. The seed cavity is small, elongated, surrounded by numerous granulations. Seed chambers are ovate, sparsely seeded, tight. Seeds elongated, yellow-brown. Flesh juicy, white, of medium firmness, fine-grained, sweet-and-sour in flavor with a slight astringency and stone cells near the seed cavity; aroma weak. Taste rating 3–3.5 points. At harvest the taste is poorer; it improves in storage. Picking maturity is late September to early October. The variety tends to overbear, which causes fruit to become smaller.

Fruits hold firmly on the tree and set in clusters. In storage they ripen 15-20 days after picking. They keep for 1-2 months. When fully ripe the fruits brown and spoil quickly, so they require rapid marketing. Transportability is good.

Best pollinators: Klapp's Favorite, Williams, Olivier de Serre. The variety is triploid with sterile pollen. Begins fruiting in the 5th-6th year after planting, on quince rootstock in the 4th-5th year. The cultivar is highly productive, with high but irregular yields (average yield at 17–20 years - 150–180 centners/ha, at 24–26 years – 200–250 centners/ha). Grows and fruits well both on wild pear rootstock and on quince, on which trees often revert to their own roots. In nurseries seedlings grow very vigorously.

Hardiness zone 6a.

Site: not demanding on soil, but grows better on light, sufficiently moist soils. Heat requirement is high – in cool summers it does not accumulate enough sugars. The plant is drought-tolerant. After frost damage it quickly recovers and continues to fruit abundantly.

Pruning: thinning of overcrowding branches and light shortening of extension shoots.

Diseases and pests: resistance to scab is medium

Uses: Fruits are consumed fresh and used for processing. For canning it gives mediocre results (3.5 points). In nurseries it is used as an interstock for pear varieties that did not succeed on quince.