Your Korean giant is very early! Mine won’t be ready for another month or more depends on fall temperature. Are you sure it is Korean giant?
BTW How is your shin li doing?
I really like Korean Giant. The texture is nice. It’s definitely a very dense/harder pear, but not tough. The sweetness and flavor are more simple than Hosui — no real tartness or strong butterscotch. Maybe cane sugar is an accurate description of the flavor? I prefer Hosui and Korean Giant to Chojuro, and have no experience with Seuri Li.
@IL847 Yes, I actually have 2 Korean Giant trees from different sources, and the fruit are the same. They ripen at the end of September or early October previously. I don’t think most of the others on the tree are near ripe yet. Shin Li still has white seeds! I found one that a squirrel pulled down today and it was definitely nowhere near ripe. Mine are getting very large with a size comparable to Korean Giant.
Here’s one of the last Hosui to ripen. This one has a decently spread out harvest window. I’ve been picking them for nearly a month with the latest ones over twice the size of the early ones.
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Your Hosui looks very nice. Large size and clean. I bet it taste very good too. I have Shin li grafted but has not set fruits yet. I hope it is not a late season pear. I still have couple of Daisui li in theshade of the tree turning light yellow. I think they are ripe. My Yongi has changed color as well and I think it’s ripe too.
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OFM have not been prevalent at all this year. Only a handful of fruit have been affected so far. I thinned all the fruit that got bitten by plum curculio. Stink bugs were moderately harsh on Drippin Honey with a good portion of fruit exhibiting bites. They ignored Hosui, Shin Li, and Shinsui.
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We just got buried with a huge drippin honey and ayers harvest. Each crop was hundreds of pounds of pears so friends came to help pick and eat pears.
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Chojuro in my opinion would be more yellow. Did it taste like butterscotch? Was the skin rough or smooth my guess is rough.
To me, the skin feels smooth (subjective). There is a green yellow skin below the bronze skin. The flesh is juicy and fine texture.
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Chojuro and hosui can have the distinct taste of butterscotch. It may take another year or two growing it before we know.
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I took California out of the refrigerator this week. They had turned from the dull color to a brighter red and I rated them 4 out of 5. Not many pears get a 5 around here. I just picked all Paragon and Shenandoah plus a few Bosc. This will be my first year to try the Paragon and Shenandoah. I’m really anxious to taste Paragon (Yungen). Hopefully it will save in good conditon until Comice is ready. I should still have some Magness/Warrens to taste as well. I also picked most Harrow Sweet last week - I think they shoulkd have been picked sooner. Here are some pictures:
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I love your pear reports and photos, David!
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Shin Li is ripe at my location. It’s a very juicy and refreshing pear. There is some complexity to the flavor. Definitely a little tartness and spice going on, and none of that butterscotch aroma found in some of the russeted varieties. The texture is very crisp, but not so dense and hard like Korean Giant. The size is comparable to Korean Giant, and is definitely larger than the average Hosui, Chojuro, or Drippin Honey. I also find the name interesting in that it reflects this pear’s heritage. It’s a hybrid between Japanese and Chinese varieties with “Shin” meaning new in Japanese and “Li” being the Chinese word for pear.
@IL847
@mamuang
@RedSun
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Good to know. My Shin li is still a stick, may not bear fruits till the year after next. But based on your report, I really look forward to taste the fruits.
It’s interesting that it and its sister daisui li has nothing in common. Daisui li is early ripe, small to medium size, yellow russet skin, shape like an European pear, smell and taste like one too. I start to question if mine is a true daisui li.
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I have had Shen Li for the past several years. They are still on my tree now. They look like the above.
I agree that Shen Li and the bronze color pears are totally different. The texture is very coarse, or grainy. They are larger, but not as large as the Korean Giant. For whatever the reason, my Shen Li does not taste that sweet. I’ve tried to keep the pears as long as possible on the tree. One year I harvested them on 9/16.
The bronze color pears have finer texture and very juicy. Korean Giant has coarse texture, but very sweet. I just hope my Shen Li is better this year.
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That looked good.
It is hard to find any pear being as large as KG. This year is a down year of my KG. With fewer fruit, several of my KG are quite large.
I look forward to trying my Shin Li. It is later than KG so it won’t be until some time in Oct.
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@PharmerDrewee
I picked a couple of Korean Giant pears today just to try. Underripe. Seeds were only half brown, half white. Very late Sept/early Oct is the picking time for me.
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Wow, your illustrated photos look like they’re out of some pear catalogue.
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I’ve picked Korean Giant over the past two weeks. My wife likes them even when fhey are not sweet. The one I picked yesterday was sweet with brown seeds. I’ll wait one more week to pick the rest - end of September. They are a little early this year.
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When they ripe, they are sweet and remain crunchy so I like them that way. Underripe can taste “chalky”.
Sometimes, I let some hang into Nov. they are still firm but lose some crunch. I like KG because it is what a good Asian pear should be, sweet and crunchy. This variety is large and a has long picking time without losing its good eating quality.
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One of my Korean giant branch touched the ground. The rabbits ate some of the fruits. I harvest the fruits on that branch. To my surprise, they are sweet, crunch and juicy. In general, I pick Korean giant around mid October. This year it certainly ripens early.
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I picked my last two Maxine. Nice size of 12 oz. Crunchy juicy not very sweet but refreshing. But judging by the seeds color, they are still not ripe yet. I think I read somewhere , Clark @clarkinks picked his at least 2~3 weeks ago . So when should I pick my Maxine?
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