Asian Pears......teach me!

CAS_HNTR

Active Member
Looking at planting an Asian pear to two......lets heard the good and bad as I don't have much familiarity with them.
 
I think they are as easy to grow as European pears, though I've always heard they are more apt to be susceptible to fire blight. I only have two young non bearing tree so I don't have a lot of personal experience with them yet besides they are growing really well.
The guy at ames orchard has a nice write up on them and he's grown them for years.
http://www.amesorchardandnursery.com/fruit-plants/pears.html
 
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Love mine !!

I have a Olympic giant, and a Hosui in my yard that are on their 4th leaf. They fruited on their second leaf (picked them off @ dime sized). This year, I let the Olympic giant keep 15 fruit and picked off 30 this spring. The Hosui is much bigger in height and diameter. I kept 45 fruit this year and the kids and I picked off 205 dime sized fruit this spring. These were grafted trees on OHF x 97 for the OG, and 87 for the Hosui. The 97 is 1/6th of the size right now for whatever reason....

We really like the taste of them. They store bought ones don't really compare in flavor. I have never been impressed with the store bought ones, but the ones from the yard trees are up their on my list of all fruits :)

I have never sprayed, and haven't noticed any bugs on them, or any imperfections on the leaves of any sorts. The peach trees that are 20 yards away were beaten up by Japanese beetles this year.
 
Look into the Korean Giant. One of the few oriental pears that are extremely disease resistant.
 
I really like the Olympic as a late dropper (Late October) for deer and for the table. I have a few that are on their 5th leaf and have had fruit from a young age and have not missed a year yet, unlike my Euro's. I love eating them on the way in or out of my stand in the late fall. Cool, crisp and super tasty.
I also have Niitaka which is excellent table fair, and a Hosui as well.
I've found that you really have to let them ripen or the tannin level can leave a bitter taste if picked too early. Its almost best to let the them fall to the ground and scoop them up. You will notice that the stem changes from a light brown to almost black in color when the are ready to eat. So delicious!
 
If I were to start over it would be ALL Asian pears for soft mast. They are hard to prune to grow pretty but....bugs and disease have never bothered them. They drop late and the deer love them. Mine produce each and every year. And the bonus is they are wonderful to eat right off the tree.
 
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