That’s the stage they are in you would be a happy man here now. I eat a couple like that and my teeth are clean and my jaws are soar. They are likely very good for us. They remind me a lot of apples.
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Yes, exactly. When they are like that they remind me of eating an apple. To me a lot better eating than later on.
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If I had a lot of pears to peel for processing I would try and blanch them. Put them in boiling water for 20-30 seconds then cool them in an ice bath. Should peel much more easily.
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I agree, try that. I use this process to get the skins off my peaches. It works very well on my peaches.
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I’d try that - if the squirrels had left me any
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@39thparallel
improved Kieffer are oddly fruity this year I suppose due to the late ripening times. It’s remarkable how much difference weather makes! Insect damage shows sugars are very high this year on these late ones. Remarkable how heavy they produce! Find myself using any box I have to fill with pears! Picked another 100 pounds today! Remember it frosted on my blooms this year so this is what’s left. Have a couple hundred ungrafted trees I will graft over next year. Think I figured out how to grow a pear orchard in Kansas! As you sell pear trees and scions the next generation of orchadists have less worries. I’m hoping the next generation benefits from much of the research we did. They may discover new better ways to do things and the problems that go with them.
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Some of the hundreds of pounds inside are starting to ripen. These later pears are really good this year. The cold weather is here now and it concentrates the sugars in these late pears. There are still a lot of these left to pick! Some are heavily russeted due to the early bloom time of the tree.
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Thanks for posting pictures of your Improved Kieffer. It sure looks like the one I have but we have a pretty wide difference in ripening times. I don’t often hear it referenced as being sweet other than my experience with it. I don’t have a brix meter so I go by taste and when they ripen everyone that tastes it likes it. My Orient is pretty much the same taste. I try to eat the peeling of most fruit but these two are exceptions. Clark you do great work and we all benefit from your effort.
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@clarkinks do your kieffer and improved trees both get often frosted out from the early bloom time?
Like you say our Kieffer is the only ancient fruit tree on our old farmstead.
Last year its blooms got totally fried.
This year it 90% froze out but it set a light crop so I picked those i could reach about 3/4 a bushel a week ago and mom put them in jars.
I love them fresh when they turn yellow firm, better than most walmart apples or grapes at least… (but i love all fruit…)
We havent yet had a freeze down here, even the basil barely missed getting fried a week ago we got down to like 38. It should get taken out this weekend along with the tomato and pepper.
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Most years they make a crop. The blooms are very resistant to cold. If you want to cheat a bit spray the tree with the copper in early spring. Kill the bacteria that help ice form you gain a few degrees of protection.
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Most years they make a crop. The blooms are very resistant to cold. If you want to cheat a bit spray the tree with the copper in early spring. Kill the bacteria that help ice form you gain a few degrees of protection.
These pears ripen in late July or early August some years but some are still ripening in October this year. I suspect I will still be picking in November! Typically they don’t have so much sugar in them but this year the cold weather is bringing it out. Some people put pears in the refrigerator but it’s always nicer when nature is on our side doing it for us.
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Interesting!! 
Interesting. Is there a connection between bloom time and russeting?
The later the bloom the less russeting?
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There can be, look up frost rings as an example here. These are photos I posted showing frost rings the last few years on this type of pear. Typically pears that bloom early are the most likely to be frosted on. Improved Kieffer is very resistant to cold weather during its bloom time.
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Auburn your experience matches mine with improved keifer, not surprising since we’re in the same general area. Like yours my tree fruits late summer, a few fruits ripen early fall but none as late as October. It’s taste when properly ripened is sweet, a bit acidic, melting, and delicious but with a bitter skin. It is not a good keeper. Mine is a huge tree and I can’t thin it enough to keep it from going biennial and breaking it’s branches in the heavy years. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say there are probably a couple different strains out their going by the name of improved keiffer so folks should make sure they acquire the version they want. Mine came from Willis Orchards.
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You both have probably heard me say I think 100 pears go by the name Kieffer. They are all different. The real Kieffer like @39thparallel grows are getting harder to find. Improved Kieffer is only improved in one way. Improved Kieffer here is very tolerant of cold. When I say tolerant I mean one year only it had no crop that I can think of. It’s had 50-90% loss of fruit a couple of times. Some would argue an early ripening time or early blooming time is not that great. I grow both improved and old fashioned Kieffer myself. At least I think I grow the right trees! Noone really know how many Kieffer have been improved do we?
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I did not know so many places are selling " fake" Kieffer pears. I planted a Kieffer pear three years ago. Now I have to watch and see what pear actually grows.
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Improved Kieffer are very good right now! Just finished enjoying one I had inside. Many like this one have occasional balls of darker brown grit which are no doubt previous injuries suffered throughout the growing season. The white flesh is very good. You can see them here by the neck. The grit is harmless but undesirable. There is also grit around the core as shown here… Seeds are black and skin yellow dripping with sugary sweet juice. Yes this is what a ripe Kieffer should look like.
You can easily physically see the grit around the seed cavity and what’s under the skin. It’s my belief improved Kieffer are slightly more gritty than Kieffer.
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