Pear tree genetic DNA update. Gareth Kennedy talks about results
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2023-02-06

Gareth Kennedy an Artist and Lecturer of sculpture NCAD & project NCAD FIELD at National College of Art and Design. He came to tell me the results from the leaf samples he took last year. He also took some scions to graft onto other trees as well as root stock. 

Results of testing:

“Hi Suzanna,
So you family held the name of the Catillac dear and faithfully! And yours is indeed far older than the Liberties Pear in pedigree andmaybe 3 or more decades!”
“”GK52 (Suzanna Crampton's tree, which she thought was Catillac): Yes, indeed it is Catillac. This is a very old variety, probably from the village of Cadillac in Aquitaine, and recorded as Cadillac in 1665. It reached the Brompton Park Nursery in London by 1696 and the USA in 1869. It was regarded in the 19th century as the foremost baking pear, and also used for compote and perry. It was still being produced for the London markets in the 1920s-1930s. It's also been planted as an ornamental tree but very rarely planted now.””

We had more great chats about farming food and the environment. I hope we can collaborate on future environmental projects with his students. My Sarah Mcquaid friend and musician who is touring Ireland right now but staying a few days on a mid tour break. Her YouTube channel is @SarahMcQuaid if you’d like to hear her songs.@SarahMcQuaid 




Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.