On sunday, 9. August 2020 we picked some Precoce du Trevoux and some Beurre Giffard:
On the left is the Precoce du Trevoux, on the right the Giffard. As you can see, the Giffard is a really small pear. The Trevoux was somewhat damaged by some animal (propably a mouse). Both trees are dwarf trees on quince on the south side of the house, which means they had identical conditions.
Ripeness: The Giffard was perfectly ripe, the Trevoux underripe, but already overripe around the wound.
Taste: The Giffard has a really light, subtle taste, but really no distinct aroma. The Trevoux had a strong typical pear taste in the overripe section, the underripe had not very much taste.
Texture: The Giffard was very juicy, with fine flesh (no grain) The Trevoux was drier and grainier, though the dryness might change with more ripening.
Juiciness: The Giffard is so juicy it’s perfectly for eating whole in three bites, whereas the Trevoux is much drier, and even if overripe, there was no “free” juice.
There are not many Giffard left, but as soon as the Trevoux are ripe, I’ll update!
Do some of you have these pears? What are your expieriences? If you pick the Trevoux hard and put them in the fridge, how long do they keep? How long until they’re ripened?
Update:
On sunday 23.8.2020 I picked a Beurre Giffard from a Standard tree and it was really different than the one 2 weeks ago. Sadly I didn’t take a picture but it was really ripe (yellow) and the texture was on the border of mealy. The taste got much more intense, with more acid, but the lingering taste was more sweet. The aroma reminded me of Louise Bonne d Jersey, my favorite pear, but less long lasting.
Today, 24.8.2020 I ate 2 Precoce du Trevoux, that were picked 2 weeks ago from our standard tree.
Both had now a yellow base colour. The flesh was soft and creamy with very fine grit cells. The flesh had a very good, typical pear aroma (I’m very bad with descriptions) whereas the skin and core had a very pronounced acidity.
Since the skin is thin and fine, and the core small, this was no problem for me.
Those look like really nice pears, @Oepfeli!! Good job!!
I didn’t have much time this fall to be reading on the forum, so I missed your posts. I just got my 2021 catalog from Schlabach’s Nursery, and they have Beurre Giffard and Bella Di Guigno listed as Early Season Pears this year. I haven’t heard of these pears before, and a search here brought up your post. While Giffard sounds like a good pear, it’s small size and non-exceptional flavor doesn’t win me over! Plus, I really don’t have room for more pears in the pear section of my orchard!
Glad you liked the description! Giffard is really not bad and I eat them gladly since they are our earliest pear (at least 3 weeks before Williams, or as you Americans call it, Bartlett) but if you already have a very early pear you like, there is no reason to buy a Giffard.
@Oepfeli, I grafted a few branches on one of my pears to Bartlett this past spring, so I should get a few early pears from those eventually.
I would still like a whole tree that is an early pear (but not a Bartlett), but I really shouldn’t plant any more pears! They get so big when mature and from what I have read here from some members on the forum, they don’t respond well to pruning to reduce height. I already have 17 pear trees!
Yikes! I didn’t realize I had so many until I counted them up…
Several of those trees have multiple varieties grafted to them, so I will have more than 17 cultivars producing at some point.
I still love to read about new-to-me cultivars, and dream!
You know what, you just prompted me to count my pear trees and now I’m on my third recount and still not sure!
But about 20 standard trees, 5 dwarfs and 5 espalier is my guess at the moment. But as of now, we only have one variety on each tree because my and my mothers grafting skills are really primitive and I really don’t want to practice on big trees and mess things up!
And really, do we need more IF all these trees bear…
But I know what you mean, I loooove to look at the pictures and discussion here on the forum and dream about having all of them!
You have quite a few pears already! Now I don’t feel like I have to many!!!
Some of mine were 2 years old I think when I first learned to graft. I thought I would fail, so I grafted onto every available lateral and leader. Most of them took! None of my pears are over 5 years old yet.
Our oldest standard trees are about 15 years old, but still not bearing plentiful. So we are always tempted to add more but if they all start bearing We’ll drown in pears…
Beurré précoce Morettini is a really nice pear that matures at that time too.
From about 12 pear varieties on the same tree Beurré Giffard gets sick the most in my orchard. Haven’t had fruit yet, so waiting for that to make the final decision to keep it it or not. Moretini on the other hand it better resistant.
On 28.7 we picked the first Trevoux and on 29.7 the first Giffard. The Giffard is tree-ripened already a tasty, juicy pear while the Trevoux need to ripen more.
This Giffard pear was nearly perfect. Melting, juicy, but not too soft. The taste was as always with Giffard more on the subtle side, but very tasty.
The ripest of the Trevoux pears was damaged by wasps. The taste is much more intense than the Giffards (more sugar, more acid, more pear taste) but sadly it had a also a distinct bitterness or astringency that lessened my enjoyment of the fruit quite a lot. Additionally, the texture is more grainy than the Giffards
Update concerning the bitterness:
We have 3 Trevoux trees (one dwarf and two standards) and the bitterness occurs only in fruit of the one standard, and not in all of them either. It would be very interesting to find the cause of this.
This year there were almost no Giffards pears, while we got between 15 and 20 kg Trévoux from two trees. The Trévoux is shaping up to one of our most reliable producers. The taste is great this year, with high sugar and intense acids. We have noticed no issues with astringency like last year.
I think now that this is less an issue with the variety and more with the specific tree. The tree that had the astringent fruit last year, did not bear this year at all. This particular tree has always been lower in vigour than the other two standard Trévoux trees. This implies to me yhat either its location is not ideal or the tree has some (as of now) invisible problem.
On one tree there was some scabby fruit, because I didn’t thin out the branches enough in winter. The other tree with better structure had blemishfree fruit. The scabby tree had noticably smaller fruit and would propably have profited from thinning.
The Trévoux propably keep about a month in the fruit drawer of the fridge.
