This is a Magness pear. It fell today. I don’t know if it’s the work of squirrel or not. It was in a tough nylon bag. After I washed the pear, it looks like it has ripened. Maybe, it fell because it has ripened.
Does anyone know when Magness ripens in zone 6? @clarkinks, @scottfsmith, @Auburn, et al?
Here are the pics.
Sorry but I don’t have any experience with jt.
For you I would guess mid-Sept is the normal ripening time, mine are a bit earlier. I need to get my Magness tree growing higher, the deer are enjoying it now.
So, a squirrel must have knicked this one off, then?
I bought this bag due to its tougher material. It clearly did not stop a squirrel from knocking fruit off a tree. Granted, there was no bite mark. It was clear that it was harder to bite through this nylon material.
The dropped pear looked good so I put it in a fridge. I will keep it there for a week or two and will see if it is edible after that.
So, do you have any home-grown pears that have ripened yet? Or is it still too early?
I assume you meant Euro pears. I have Blake’s Pride, Fondante des Moullin-Liile and Harrow Sweet. This year is the first time for the first two so I don’t know when to pick them.
@scottfsmith, when did Blake’s Pride and Fondante ripen for you, please?
Would you consider this an easy grower? I took a quick look through some of the old posts and the description from @clarkinks and concurrence from @scottfsmith here make this sound like an exciting pear.
Mine is just a small graft on Blake’s Pride tree.
@scottfsmith probably the only one I know who has experience with this pear. I have two fruit this year. One looks OK. The other looks like it gets scab.
I also saw some Magness recommendations in that other thread and Adams say its flesh is “soft, juicy and almost free of grit cells” and that its flavor is “sweet and of excellent quality”. Do you know enough to say if I should get that or Potomac as something for a person who likes Anjou? Pollination isn’t a problem, since the neighbor has some kind of Bartlett type and I can always get scionwood of something down the road for pollination/variety.
Unfortunately, my Magness pears got stolen by squirrels both last and this year 
I hope those who have eaten Magness will chime in. I tried Potomac and was impressed that store bought pears tasted that good. I like sweet, smooth flesh, no grit pears.
A big plus is that Potomac is a large pear. My Magness is a medium size. My Harrow Sweet is a medium to small size but I achieve that with seroius thinning.
Fondante des Moulins-Lille is an easy pear, it fruits super early which is very nice and it sets very reliably. Its about average on rots. Its easy to cellar and get very tasty pears out as well, unlike many pears which have narrow windows on the pick-cellar-counter ripen phases.
I picked most of mine last weekend. Its a bit hard to time the picking as they can still be quite green on the skin, go by softness at the top and if they easily come off when gently lifted. If they are yellow they are either ready to eat right now or already turning mush.
Magness is one awesome pear, one of my all-time favorites for rich juicy goodness. Unfortunately my deer think so as well, I didn’t get many this year. It also takes a long time to produce.
I don’t want to wait too long for fruit. Sounds like I’ll stick with the Potomac, which is said to fruit fairly early, and plan to graft Fondante des Moulins-Lille onto either the Potomac or the Harrow Sweet sometime down the road. Thanks
My Magness grafted on a Blake’s Pride (rootstock OHxF 97, started bearing fruit in year 4 after grafting,
Is your Harrow Sweet already at picking stage? We went to a you pick orchard this past Saturday and their Harrow Sweet were not ready for picking. I picked mostly Seckel. I will definitely add Seckel to my tree. Very sweet, cute little pears. My daughter loved them. Magness was all picked out. But I managed to find few pears to get a taste. Most were overripe and unappealing to me. I made a smoothie out of it since it was overripe, that was a hit with the kids.
Not yet. Late Sept is when I should pick them. Last year I wait very late into Oct. they did not store well and had internal rot after a while.
@mamuang
Harrow sweet were very delicious this year! I picked the last 2 Korean Giant’s and they were delicious also! My location seems to ripen fruits a few weeks ahead of your location.
I picked mine a week ago. This is my first year for HS and I made a guess on when to pick. They were coming off easily when I lifted.
A couple bug-ridden ones were already ripe on the tree, I can see where the name comes from as they were very sweet! They were not as flavorful as my favorites but I’ll see how they come out of storage before I judge them.
Clark,
Maybe because your summer this year was very hot for quite some time, your fruit ripen almost a month ahead of mine.
Our weather has been often wet, cloudy with fewer sunny days. My Koren Giant has not been close to ripen. I know because vermints have eaten them and dropped some. Not edible yet.
One HS seems to turn paler green. The rest are not quitee ready. @scottfsmith, I have to pay attention to HS this year to see if could detect any flavor/quality besides sweetness.
So what pears do you like that fit that description? I am like you, I like sweet, smooth flesh, NO GRIT pears. I hate the grit part. I am not a fan of Asian pears. They do not have much depth of flavor, IMO.
Mike,
See post # 32 up-thread. I mentioned the varieties I like, accompanied by the picture of them.
