Peffley: Pick the perfect pear with precision

If a pear is harvested too early before it is mature it will soften but be tasteless. If a pear is harvested when past ripe the fruit will be soft and mushy.

How to know when to harvest our garden-grown pears?

Pears should be picked when they are mature but not yet ripe. There are a few things to consider when harvesting and ripening any pear — but especially Bartlett pears, the most common variety grown in a home garden.

Foremost to keep in mind when timing the harvest of pears is its physiology. Pears are climacteric fruits. Climacteric fruits have a specific physiological progression in the ripening process activated by a gaseous compound, ethylene.

Ethylene is a phytohormone that triggers the ripening process and produces a cascade of metabolic events that culminate in a fully ripe fruit. This process is called the climacteric.

Under-ripe climacteric fruits have low levels of the hormone ethylene but as they mature, more ethylene is produced and the ripening process is sped up. Most fruits produce the hormone ethylene, but in climacteric fruits the ripening process continues after it is harvested.

Not all fruits are climacteric; grapes and strawberries are not climacteric, as they ripen without the release of ethylene and so are harvested fully ripe. Some fruit that are climacteric are banana, apples and tomatoes. These require ethylene for ripening and, like pears, are usually harvested before fully ripe.

Guidelines for harvesting pears:

• Harvest when mature, when fully developed, but still hard.
• Skin may have a slight yellowing.
• Flesh at the stem attachment may yield slightly when pressed.

Pears are a unique fruit, in that as they mature, they develop specialized cells called “stone cells,” so named because of their hardness. Stone cells have thick cell membranes and are very dense. Stone cells are found throughout the fleshy portions of a pear and increase in number nearer to the core. They are responsible for the “gritty” texture of pears.

Pear varieties can be distinguished by the amounts of stone cells in the flesh. Pears that are allowed to ripen on the tree accumulate stone cells, but fruit that ripens after harvest have fewer stone cells and will have smoother texture.

Recalling that pears are climacteric and continue to ripen after harvest, storage conditions are critical for quality fruit. Be mindful that pears will continue to evolve ethylene and will ripen even when stored in the refrigerator.

Guidelines for storing pears:

• When pears are still hard leave at room temperature for several days with sides not touching.
• Pears ripen from inside out. Soft necks are indicators of ripeness.
• Refrigerate fruit that is ripening (turning yellow and softening).

Pears are a nutrient-dense, low-calorie food, high in dietary fiber (mainly in the skin), vitamin C and copper. Pears are an easy fruit crop to grow and are a healthy enhancement to the home garden.

Some information from USA pears

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ELLEN PEFFLEY taught horticulture at the college level for 28 years, 25 of those at Texas Tech, during which time she developed two onion varieties. She is now the sole proprietor of From the Garden, a market garden farmette. You can email her at gardens@suddenlink.net.