Is anyone growing ‘Josephine de Malines’? It looks a little tricky to ripen properly. According to ARS GRIN https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/accessiondetail.aspx?id=1169164 “A famous very late winter pear. Small to medium, almost cone-shaped, pale green with juicy, buttery, tender, sweet flesh. A good cropper every year, this variety should not be picked until the leaves fall and must be brought to ripeness carefully or its flesh will remain granular and tasteless. Not ready to eat until after Christmas. Bunyard praised this pear almost too highly, saying, ‘If one winter pear only can be grown this should be selected.’ Of Belgian origin about 1830. – Robert Nitschke, Southmeadow Fruit Gardens Catalog, 1976.
Raised about 1830 by Major Esperen at Malines, Belgium, and named after his wife. Fruit small, bergamot to short conical; skin smooth or slightly rough; flesh white tinged green, fine melting, sweet and moderately juicy. A good winter pear. Tree weak to moderate. Good resistance to pear scab. – Jim Arbury, Pears, 1997.”
I grafted it onto Quince in 2014 (wood from ARS/GRIN). I haven’t needed to figure out how to ripen it yet, as it hasn’t flowered or set fruit. It has grown enough that I think it is close. Maybe next year or the year after.
Bob,
Have you had any disease problems with this pear? It seems like a good one. It’s on my list to graft next year.
No issues that I’ve noticed. I’m guessing it falls somewhere in the middle- Magness having the most pristine leaves and Honeysweet looking a bit spotted and beat up. I’ll take a look later this summer. But, the real test will be once it starts fruiting.
Note- I haven’t had fireblight on any of the pears, AFAIK. I’m happy with that and hope it continues (knocks on wood).
Mine is taking forever to fruit, its not in a good spot. Nearly all my pears have fruited by now, this is one of the 3-4 varieties I planted in 2003 that have not yet fruited.
Maybe not in the next two years then. Mine isn’t in a prime location either, though it gets a decent amount of sun.
What are the other laggards? So this is actually less precocious than Magness? I didn’t think that was possible…
Bob,
When I had the 17 year cicada problem there were a lot of FB strikes. About once a year a random tree gets hit and dies to the ground. This year Maxine got clobbered which I never saw coming, last year was plumblee both of which are highly fireblight resistant. Ironically Clapps favorite had no strikes. The parent Clapps favorite was 15 years old and around 25 feet tall when it was hit and dead to the ground in no time. FB is a strange disease and the things I think would be killed are not and vice versa. By the way I do still grow clapps favorite. The fruit from the parent tree were excellent and we had them many years. Grafted forelle and Comice to name a couple this year which I don’t expect to make it long but they could be like clapps favorite and surprise me.
Scott,
14 years is a long amount of time even in the pear world. Is that on callery Scott? I better put that one on 333 or quince.
Tyson, Marie Loiuse, and Grand Champion win the laggards race … I think there are a couple fruits on Tyson this year, but its not a real crop. All but Grand Champion are in the same spot so I expect the location is part of it. They are on random rootstocks but no Callery - two are on OH513 and I didn’t log the other two, either seedling or 513 though I expect.
Never knew Tyson was such a laggard. That’s too bad. My Tyson graft is growing so nice. I wonder if it will ever fruit…
StephenHayesUK (YouTube) says JdM is one of his favorite pears in England.
I agree with you. Having to wait 14+ years for a tree to fruit is an awfully long time. I had been looking for this pear up until I read this thread. I’ll find another one to plant instead. I’d like to have some fruit off a tree before I die from old age.
Anyone try Josephine de Malines fruit last year or have blossoms for 2019? Im grafting it to the top of a mature pear tree this year.
I already have flowers this year. I cheated and girdled it. I’m not growing something that many years without tasting it. In addition I put it on callery and BET which forced fast growth into the scion. I grew the rootstocks out in the field and field grafted them. I need to check my ohx333 to see what made it in that orchard. I have hundreds of field grown rootstocks available to graft.
I got a tree. I’ll keep it. I’d like to know how you think of JdM.
Tyson has taken.a long to fruit for me as well @scottfsmith. I have one tree with a cluster of blooms on it this year. I’m looking forward to trying Tyson. It’s a slow growing tree.
I finally removed mine a few years ago. Marie Louise I also removed. Grand Champion I really should remove.
A few did finally start fruiting after many year, for example Josephine des Malines is putting out a few blooms as is Glou Morceau.
If anyone on this thread wanted to send me a stick of Josephine de Malines I’d be forever grateful (and would comp your postage/packaging). Just putting this out there into the universe… 
Hi @Matt_in_Pennsylvania
I’ve got an extra stick of Josephine de Malines that I got from the CRFG scion exchange in Sacramento. The caliper is a little thick as shown in the photo. I used half of the shorter scion for a graft onto BA-29C, and I’ll use the other half to put on OHxF 97. But I probably won’t use the longer stick if you’d like to take it off my hands. I have some extra scions of rare pears such as Juteuse de Chailly, Fondante de Moulins Lille, Bergamote de Pentacote, San Juan Bautista Mission, Eric’s/Barlow, El Dorado, Chapin, etc. Loads of apple scions as well. I’ve bench-grafted 75 B118, 20 BA-29C, and 5 myro 29c so far, and I have 75 apples, 85 pears, and 10 cherry grafts to go, so it’ll be nice to know I won’t be wasting wood of such nice cultivars. Feel free to reply or DM if you’d like a list of the varieties.
I also have some extra persimmon scions (American and Asian) from Fruitwood Nursery. They send nice long sticks and I didn’t need to use all of them. If anyone wants free scions just let me know.
Wow, Alex- What a generous reply. I definitely want the JdM as well as the Fondante de Moulins-Lille (a pear I used to have, but lost). Can you PM me the full list of your extras? Thanks.
-Matt