Starting to pick the remaining Drippin Honey and they are truly exceptional unlike the first slightly greener fruits! Earlier fruits lacked flavor and were a complete dissapointment. Today is September 19th and these would easily hit a 9 on a 10 scale! These are the very best Asian pear I grow when conditions are favorable for them.
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Drippin Honey is showing many more russeted pears this year. I think I left some of them hanging for too long and the OFM are starting to attack them.
Some are russeted on only 1 side.
Others have patchy russeting.
I’ve been dehydrating them with excellent results. My friend asked me if I added sugar or honey to them, because the dried product is so rich and sweet.
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Good way to preserve the pears without adding extra sugar.
Yes, quite russeted. Those that face sun turned yellowish on my tree. Only those in the shade are on green side.
The one on first picture, if you didn’t say it is DH, I might have mistaken it as a Korean giant
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I notice the same traits that you note as well. Some of mine on well lit branches are very yellow. My Korean Giant look very much like the russeted ones.
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I took this picture a couple days ago and was thinking I would at it somewhere. So this thread seems as good as any a place. Here is Shinko on the left and Drippin’ Honey on the right. For comparison. This is the first year bearing for grafts that were placed three years ago. The Shinko bore heavily probably because they grew the best. The Drippin Honey pictured was the only fruit, so I guess it’s a somewhat limited judgement. But here is my comparison as it stands. Shinko has a thicker more rough skin, borderline like I want to peel it but just put up with it. Shinko has a larger cell texture, almost like a super crunchy juicy watermelon. Thus far Shinko is slightly sweet with sometimes a faint butterscotch flavor but not always. Drippin’ Honey has a finer texture, sweeter and better flavor but not overly sweet, and the skin is just fine…meaning not off-putting. At this time I think DH is a far superior fruit, but I still enjoy Shinko.
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Thanks Calvin for comparing the DH and Shinko. I grafted shinko this year and am looking forward to tasting the fruits.
Does Shinko and DH ripen in same time frame? It looks like they do but I just want you to confirm because you and I are in the same zone I’d like to use your ripen time as reference if you don’t mind
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For me, Shinko started to ripen about a week before DH, so yes pretty much in the same time frame. When I have more DH in the future I will try picking some earlier, but this one was still rock hard a week or so ago when I started picking the Shinko and had a wee bit of elastic give when I picked it the other day. In the future I will also be able to let them hang longer to see how things change. We pick 3-5 Shinko every few days over the last 2 weeks and they seem a bit better each time. They’ll be all gone by end of next week. Very satisfying to eat.
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Just a bit more information for you. This week the Shinko are past their prime. They don’t really look any different as far as more yellow but the texture has started to change. They are not quite as crunchy, maybe a wee bit soggy now and drip on your shirt when you eat them and the flavor hasn’t improved in anyway to justify letting them hang longer. So, when they get to where you really like them around mid September go ahead and pick them all and store them in the fridge to stop the ripening further I guess.
Clark, sorry to add all this Shinko talk to your DH thread.
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Calvin, appreciate the additional information. I write down the?approximate harvest date for my reference
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Thanks for the report-out; I think you’re in my area, and it sounds like you harvested around Sept 20. I planted my drippin’ honey today! Now the wait is on 
@clarkinks - when you plant your DH’s, how low do you typically end up heading the bare root leader?
I actually ordered 2, and one of them does not look good. Black rings that look like some sort of blight to me, and some buds that are getting some white mold (that part may be my fault due to moisture in the bag) Can anyone advise me about what this might be and if I should plant it up or be wary of spreading some disease? The lower couple feet is devoid of the black.
I will try for some better pictures in daylight, tomorrow.
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That appears to be fireblight I would cut those off. Spray the trees down with copper.
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Thank you. Do you think the roots should be sprayed as well? Of course, the healthy looking one is already in the ground (could be pulled today), and was in the same box.
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There is no need to spray the roots just remove the fireblight and spray the rest.
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@rossn I think you should notify the company like this member did.
https://growingfruit.org/t/korea-giant-from-gouney-s-is-the-black-spot-on-trunk-fireblight-or-black-rot/44295/18
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Thanks - yes I will. I normally wouldn’t buy from Gurney’s, but they seem to hold the exclusive rights to DH. It is a little surprising they would pack a tree so obviously diseased.
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Do your Drippin Honey pears normally get so large? or is that from extra time on the tree?
It’s a sizable pear when adequately thinned. The size can be comparable to larger varieties like Korean Giant, Jilin, and Shin Li.
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I have to say your tree is 10 times worse than the Korea Giant pear tree I got from Gurney’s. It’s likely an organization issue. So call them and tell them how bad they were and how mad you are. I think they are ready to refund you. Mention the fireblight word. They know they screwed up badly.
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My Dripping Honey has bloomed this year so I hope I will get to sample them this year (5 spurs with flowers).
@PharmerDrewee I like a large pear like the Korean Giant so it’s good to see that the DH can get big.
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I like to record flowering order/date of my fruit so I can refer back to which ones are most likely to be good cross pollination partners. I’m mostly referring to getting Dripping Honey pollinated. Korean Giant was my first to flower and a few days later Dripping Honey and Harrow Sweet opened up. Although the KG blooms are about finished I did have enough overlap in my opinion to work for all three. I will know for sure in a few days. This timing might be different at other locations.