I purchased a combo Drippin Honey/Chojuro Asian pear tree from Gurney’s last year. When I received the tree it is not labeled which part of the tree is Drippin honey or chojuro. Is there any way to tell which variety is which at this point or will I have to wait until it hopefully fruits in a few years. Also, I did call gurney’s and asked and they said those trees are not labeled and that they have no way of knowing. Also, if anyone knows where I can purchase a Drippin Honey tree, other than gurney’s, please let me know.
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Everywhere seems sold out right now, this is the only other place I know of that sells trees of it Drippin' Honey Pear | Shop Fruit Trees | Spring Hill
And this place sells cuttings of it for grafting, also sold out of it Asian Pear Scionwood : Dripping Honey Asian Pear Scionwood
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The difference is pretty distinguished. Drippin Honey looks like this
Chojuro looks like this
Here is a nice photo @ztom took of chojuro
Here is a nice photo of drippin Honey i took
You will notice the leaves of drippin honey come to more of a point. That is the easiest way to tell the difference. There are many differences. I would buy the asian pear you want from @39thparallel it is called honey asian . The difference is the name like cripps pink apples are really pink lady apples. Patents expire but trademarked names never do.
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Could someone help me out with the approximate ripening window for drippin honey? I looked at getting the honey pear from 39th parallel and after looking at their listing/other places that sell it, I would have thought it was a later pear. I’ve seen it anywhere from early/mid September and even into October. Most of the folks on here seem to put it into mid August which is much earlier. I know that all depends on your location but it seems like a wide range.
I am trying to pick a second Asian pear to go with drippin honey that will spread out my harvest. I originally thought Hosui would be a good choice, after seeing that Cummins listed that one as mid August. But after reading a lot of these threads I would almost think they would be coming off at the same time. Crazy! Can someone please give me some advice? For reference, I’m in northern Indiana, zone 6a.
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Its considered early to mid for an asian pear.
I think olympian/korean giant is a well liked late asian pear
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I’m not even close to your location but my Dripping Honey starts to ripen about mid August and Korean Giant starts about 4 weeks later.
When does Hosui ripen compared to drippin honey for you?
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I don’t have Hosui.
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It ripens around August 10th
Hosui ripens before drippin honey. It is one of the first.
Drippin honey ripens and could be picked in most cases August 1st but we pick them over a 2-3 week window. They are sugary sweet and crunchy at first later turning yellow and more mushy.
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Thank you very much, Clark. Hosui doesn’t sound like a good match for me then. Does the Olympic/KG pear ripen in early October for you? I’d like to find a good pair (ha) to spread out my harvest window.
I imagine that my harvest dates would be a little bit later than yours. Although, I don’t know that for a fact. I tried looking through some of your older posts to find something to compare, but didn’t have much luck. I’m new to fruit growing, so the only thing I could compare would be my Honeycrisp apple, which was ripe September 1 here.
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An October Pear is duchess d’ Angoulme.
Seckel is early to mid October.
I show Duchesse d’Angouleme is a mid October to early November ripening pear.
Comtesse de Paris aka Flemish Beauty is late December to early January.
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It’s mid September here. 6b/7a
Seckel is way earlier than that it’s late August/ early September
That sounds about right to me, in 2023 while I was visiting NYC I bought some awesome Seckel pears, and they ran out Early October, I am sure that they were in cold storage for about a month.
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So is that right that an Asian pear will cross pollinate with a European pear? I thought maybe I needed a second Asian pear
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Yes that’s right a wild callery can even pollinate both.
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