Red Clapp's Favorite, also known as Kalle, is an attractive red-flushed early-season pear.
It is best to pick the pears towards the end of summer, as soon as the color develops, and bring them indoors to ripen. As a guide, this variety is likely to ripen 1-2 weeks ahead of Bartlett.
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Red Clapp's Favorite is suited to most climates, including the maritime climate of the Pacific North West, and colder climates of the northern states. However it is susceptible to fireblight.
Advice on fruit tree pollination.
Red Clapp's Favorite is a good example of a "sport", a natural genetic mutation. The original Clapp's Favorite was raised by Thaddeus Clapp of Dorchester, Massachusetts in the 1850s, possibly a cross between Bartlett and Flemish Beauty. It is essentially a green pear but with a tendency to show some red flush. In the 1930s Adrian Kalle, a grower in Van Buren County, Michigan, noticed that one of the branches of a Clapp's Favorite tree growing in his orchard had pears that were a solid dark red color - quite different from the normal red-flushed green pears on the other branches. This new form was patented in 1952 and taken on by Stark Brothers nursery under the name Starkrimson, but today it is more widely known as Kalle or Red Clapp's Favorite.
