I think all your pears are amazing. And you seem to just come up with more and more great looking fruit.
3 Likes
Thanks Fruitnut. Next year I should have several more varieties coming into production. I’ve been experimenting with pears here on my place for over 20 years. The nice thing about pears is I’ll be picking fruit the rest of my life from what I planted 20 years ago. The next generation of people that live here will likely be eating these pears. Many of the pears I’m growing now cannot be grown commercially. When I retire I would like to grow pears commercially so I’m still determining what will work best.
3 Likes
Holy Cow1 Do you ever have pears. I’ll have to photograph my one meager tree, so you can really know what you’ve got there! They are fantastic! Even my squirrels couldn’t eat all of those pears!
3 Likes
Pears are so hard to tell apart! I assume you have yours well-labeled
1 Like
ltilton,
I do a good job of labeling young trees though I have them memorized by the time they are fruiting age.
2 Likes
Thanks Mrsg47 for the compliment I really appreciate your kind words. It took me awhile to get good at growing pears. My first 12 years I did not get any pears. Took a lot of learning, patience, and hard work. Now that I’ve got better at growing pears things are going great. People say it’s easy to grow pears and it is but growing them the right way is actually very difficult. Pears can be very productive but they must be sprayed at the right times, have proper nutrients, proper pruning, be the right varieties for the area among just a few things. Then only half of the fruit we get is skill the other 50% of our success is up to nature. The hardest part for me was thinking far enough ahead to pare the varieties once I realized I can’t spray within a month or so of when other fruits are ripening. Pear orchards are literally non existent in my area. Though I have heard of the existence of one around 50-70 miles from here which I believe is the only other in the state. Professional growers such as @39thparallel and @Olpea can attest to how difficult it actually is to grow fruit in this area. Pears are one of the hardest to grow here. I still have a lot to learn which is a constant work in progress. It’s not been to long ago the trees that produced this fruit were snowed on during bloom and underwent freezing temperatures Strange weather - Will it get our blooms and fruit?. Sometimes we are blessed with good fortune. Like many other fruit growers this year I could have lost my fruit. Most of the small growers in this area lost their fruit but it was my hill top location for my orchard that likely saved mine. That same location cost me a lot of new grafts during the storms this spring and summer. Thanks to @fruitnut I used the t-budding method to graft a couple of those storm damaged trees later in the year after the weather calmed down. The more I know about growing fruit the more I know I don’t know.
6 Likes
The first step towards wisdom in any arena is knowing how little one knows, just my humble opinion.
7 Likes
Sweet, crisp, and juicy! Drippin’ Honey is the king of Asian pears at my farm! Was losing a large number of the pears to rot from the rain and saw Japanese Beetle numbers starting to increase as the smell of fruit sugar was in the air today. Ate about 20 pears and I gave myself a belly ache. Trying to ripen them up any more on the tree would not have worked out. Some animals or insects could not have resisted. Always feels good to have the harvest in the buckets! Biggest harvest I have had of these pears in spite of a bad case of blossom blast this spring Boron deficiency / Blossom Blast?. Three full buckets left after I’ve eaten my fill of them the last two days.
9 Likes
Man Clark, those look incredible. I’m so jealous. I’ve heard it’s a great Asian. Maybe I can bum a few sticks of scion wood next spring. Lol
2 Likes
Speedster,
I wish I could compare them with Korean Giant or Hosui or others that I’ve heard are very good but that will take a couple of years for me to get to that point. Asian pears seem to be similar to other pears in production and in disease problems. I learned this spring that soil benefited a lot from the minerals I added. Specifically I think the boron and magnesium made a big difference. The leaves went from light yellow to dark green and the trees really grew a lot this year! The blossom blast cleared up after the boron application.
3 Likes
Very good harvest Clark. I just gave about 60 lbs of Asian pears to my in laws and the the remaining 3 trees still loaded. I will refrigerate some because they will keep for several months and not like the European pears with short shelve life.
Tony
1 Like
Do you use 20 Mule Team for the boron?
I’ve been wondering how you know how much is too much of that stuff
Tony,
I just packed the crispers as well. What types do you have ripening Tony? Sounds like your harvest did extremely well!
ltilton,
I used a very small amount 1-2 tsp per 2 gallons of water and applied it as a foliar spray. In my case I had some big problems so a person could likely get by with a lot less who did not have those big problems. I used the roach powder because that is what I could find at the time. I have 20 mule team now and plan to use it from now on.
Clark,
This was a strange year for me due to the extremely early hot weather. Here are the ripened Asian pears: Shinseiki, Shinko. Mishirasu, and Chojuro. The Squirrels, Raccoons, Hornets, and Japanese beetles are having a hay days also.
Tony
1 Like
Tony,
A bunch of my fall fruit ripened early here. Since we did not have much of a winter I think the trees are confused. What’s strange is some of my fruits are early and others are later than normal. The aronia’s look like they are nearly ripe.
1 Like
Thanks
There is apparently a definite risk in using even slightly too much, but of course the box doesn’t say!
1 Like
ltilton,
Soil tests should be performed. I think you will find this article fascinating http://www.tfrec.wsu.edu/horticulture/nutspray.html. Many of the orchard problems frequently reported are caused by boron deficiency. This is an interesting article on Walnut trees response to foliar sprays as it relates to vegetative and reproductive growth Ashspublications.org. If boron is applied this year it will benefit next springs crop http://oregonstate.edu/dept/kbrec/sites/default/files/documents/crops/foliar_fert_news_n_notes.pdf
1 Like
Glad to see the pear harvest winding down. It’s been a great year for fruit. This is the last big crop of the year. Improved Kieffer are a great canning pear. Production will be better in the future. We do have another dozen or two pears that will ripen up later and some crab apples. Lost a 5 gallon bucket or more to drops from the high winds last night and today. Have a feeling we wont miss them. Always like to leave some windfalls and a few on the trees for the animals to eat.
12 Likes
WOW! That is mind boggling!
2 Likes