@disc4tw just grabbed the last rooted Texas Scarlet flowering quince. Now for the 2nd variety hmmmm. Thanks for the link
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I planted a Toyo-Nishiki in 2020. Still pretty small and growing as a shrub. Can they be trained to a central leader? Any idea how long before they produce fruit?
You can definitely grow them from cuttings. I used some sticks from my overgrown Chaenomeles as stakes for my potted grafts, and I had to keep pulling them and stripping the roots off! They were quite ready to root.
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For easy processing I recommend simmering Chaenomeles fruits whole in a sauce pan with a little water for about 20 minutes. They will get as soft as apple sauce and can then be put through a food mill to separate the pulp from the skin, seeds and firm core tissue.
For anyone interested in breeding this fruit, they are usually self incompatible and require cross pollination, but there is the genetic potential within the Genus for self fertility which could be selectively bred for to increase yields. No cultivars in the US are specifically listed as self fertile, but there are a couple of small fruited selections popular in the bonsai community which set heavy crops of fruit very likely the result of self-compatibility. These could be used as a basis for breeding. Also, thornlessness vs.thorniness appears to be based on single gene making for simple breeding work in that regard.
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FYI, both ‘Toyo Nishiki’ and ‘Victory’ appear to be selections of Chaenomeles speciosa rather than C. japonica. Not that it really matters to the point of this post, but I’ve been spending hours correcting misidentified Chaenomoles on iNaturalist and now I’m hyper focused on correct use of nomenclature. lol
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Good to know. I updated my database. Thanks for the info!
My grandmother had a prolifically-fruiting C.japonica (I presume that’s the ID… it was the old-timey red-orange flowered variety) that I presume was self-fertile. She had several at various places around the farmstead, but I suspect that they were all just clones of one another, started from cuttings she took from the original one that she was given.
I’ve got one of the ‘regular’ red/orange C.japonica here, as well as Toyo-Nishiki. T-N looks as though it wants to be a more upright bush than the spreading red-orange flowered selection.
@Lucky_P Was your grandmother’s orange/red one a low bush type (maybe 2-3ft tall)? It seems the true C. japonica selections have an easier time setting fruit in some locations due to a slightly later bloom time than the C. speciosa selections. It IS possible her’s was a self fertile selection too. You should try to get cuttings from her’s if you still have any access. It sounds like a winner.
How are these doing? I’m specifically interested in ’ Tanechka’ because they say it’s a Ukrainian variety and I know that breeding work has been done in that region specifically for fruit production. However, I am unable to find any references to confirm anything about this cultivar. Google Translate indicates that “Tanechka” (танечка) means “little girl”, but no nurseries outside the US seem to carry any Chaenomeles variety with this name. I’d like to know if Tanechka is really the correct cultivar name and it’s just under documented or if it was a re-branding by a US nursery.
By the way, I acquired Chaenomeles ‘Orange Delight’ this year and it appears to be a selection of true Japanese quince (C. japonica) so the bush should stay very small. It appears to be a variety selected for bonsai use due to its abundant set of tiny fruit giving it an ornamental look. Abundant fruit set made me suspect it may be one of the uncommon self-fertile types and I do believe I was able to confirm that. It bloomed later than my other selections (as would be correct for pure C. japonica) and the three flowers on the tiny plant set three fruit (I did offer hand pollination with its own pollen). Two of the fruit fell off during the heat of summer, but one is still attached and appears ripe now. Of course the tiny fruit size is not ideal, but I think this will be a fantastic breeder plant for crossing with larger fruited types to offer opportunities to develop large fruited self fertile clones which are abundantly productive.
If all goes well I may make my first cross with it next year. I’ll probably throw it in the greenhouse to get it blooming at the same time as my other clones. I’m most interested in crossing it with C. cathayensis because of its large fruit size.
Here’s a ripe C. japonica ‘Orange Delight’ above a not quite ripe C. cathayensis. The ‘Orange Delight’ was self pollinated and had no seeds inside.
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Excited to hear how this goes! Sounds like you have some good breeding stock
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So… none of my cuttings made it. I didn’t have the best methods but I’ll probably try again with a better setup. It didn’t help that USPS took about 3x as long as it should have for my order from Fruitwood to arrive. No blame at all on the nursery in my book.
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I just got a few ‘Tanechka’ plugs from Fruitwood nursery. They didn’t respond to me when I inquired whether they know anything about its origins or what its real name is, but hopefully I’ll be able to figure someting out. By the look of the leaves it does appear to be of probable hybrid origin which would be correct if it was an improved Ukrainian selection as claimed.
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I have Victory and it flowers heavily but just occasionally produce a single fruit.
@SnacksFromPlants, is there a chance I can buy Toyo-Nishiki rooted shoot from you so my Victory has a pollinator? Now or in March would be great!
@galinas I just pruned mine heavily. I took it from 10’ tall and wide to 2’ or so as they were choking out a couple of sentimental plants for my wife. I have tons of wood as I just did it a couple of days ago and it has been outside being rained on. I don’t know how well it roots but I can send you lots of wood if you want to try. If you just cover the shipping I can send you as much as you want. They seem to be good pollinators for each other. I get 10 or more lbs from each. Let me know if you want to give it a shot to try rooting them. I have all ages of wood. I pruned out everything from new shoots to very old wood. If you want to try let me know how much you want and I can weigh it and get you a freight estimate.
Thanks, but I had no luck in rooting my flowering quince cuttings before, I only was able to transplant it with piece of root, when I dug out a side shoot. No problem, now when I know what pollinates , I will order it in spring.
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Just wanted to share my experience with what I believe are Japanese quince. These are quite sizeable, about the size of an average supermarket apple, very aromatic smell. They seem larger than most I have seen online. I tried experimenting a bit with them and made a paste/sauce out of one of them today. What I ended up with tasted like lemonade concentrate mixed with applesauce. I generally don’t like adding too much sugar to my recipes but I think with more sugar the flavors other than sour/citrus may come out. I ended up leaving the skin on and it gets pretty soft with cooking so probably not worth the hassle of peeling in my opinion.
I’m going to try some other things with them and I’ll report back.
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Yours are bigger than what you see online because they’re likely an improved selection of Chaenomeles speciosa and not the smaller C. japonica. They are interchangeable in use though.
You can avoid adding too much sugar by adding a small amount of powdered egg shells which will neutralize some of the acid.
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I have often made “lemonade” out of them. I cut the fruit into gravel sized pieces and I get two glasses out of them. Then I have to cut them even smaller and I get one last glass out of it.
John S
PDX OR
I must have this plant!
I bought a bottle of Pigwówka - Polish quince-infused ‘liqueur’ (= soaked in vodka) and wow, it’s fantastic! It fits my ‘late at night in the library with some small dessert and Brandy or portwine’ utility.
I bought this brand:
https://liondistributors.squarespace.com/baks-quince-pigwowka/
on a whim, not knowing if, for the freakishly low $15 if it’d be more like a horrid machine cleaner.
But (and hoping it’s not artificially flavoured - because of course gee, why would we ever want ingredient labels on booze?) I was hooked after the first drink!
(Hooked on booze, I know, not usually a good thing but I practice something like the ‘law of infinitesimals’ in such matters using teeny-tiny little glasses, sniffing and thinking more than drinking, consuming but a small amount of the sweet and the booze, etc. - my resistance to going overboard on plants is, alas, nil)
Pigwówka can be produced, I have learned, from Chaenomeles or Cydonia.
So now I am suddenly in great need of Chaenomeles - I think I can plant a couple in my ‘hedge’ area (have to think more to figure where I could fit a tree!).
What is a good source of these (decent fruiting ones of course; flower appearance of no importance) ?
Anybody have a source or willingness to send some propagules my way?
I’m Z5a, maybe more toward 5b in my garden.
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