I have question marks next to a few of the varieties here because they were grafted quite a while ago and the tags fell off (or degraded). From the grafting notes, I’m 90% sure of the cultivars. I’ve emailed Cliff, hoping to hear back form him if my pics/descriptions match what he has seen.
I thought that Massandra was better than OK and probably in the Sugar Cane, Honey Jar, Black Sea/Russia #2 tier.
I’d also put Mei Mi in that same tier, though it isn’t very productive as I grafted it 6 years ago and this is the first time I’ve noticed any fruit. Even now, there were only 2 fruit on the entire branch. But, one of them maxed out my refractometer (32+ brix) and it had a bit of tartness that went well with the high brix. I may graft it to another tree to see if I can get it more productive.
Huping was pretty bad from a texture standpoint. Flavor wasn’t great, but not objectionable. If I was setting up tiers, it would be:
Best:
Sugar Cane
Honey Jar
Black Sea/Russia #2
Massandra
Mei Mi
Very Good:
Autumn Beauty
Bok Jo (based on past years)
So/Contorted
Eh:
Shanxi Li (based on past years)
Rootstock from SC (based on past years)
Russia #4 (just sampled first couple)
Poor:
Huping
Rootstock from So
Not ripe yet:
Bok Jo
Shanxi Li
Sherwood
Tae Sang Wang
Coco (would have had ripe ones already, but something ate them…more left on tree)
Li
Lang
Allentown
Xu Zhou
And another 5-10 where there is only 1-3 fruit on the tree.
The same thing happened to me with Black Sea. I thought it wasn’t setting any fruit, then noticed the first one on the tree in the 2nd week of August (but only 1). Now, I’ve had 5-10 ripen, with a few more left. Either it hides it’s fruit well, or it doesn’t take very long from flower to ripe. My tree was in a 1 gal pot from OGW in Oct 2015. This year it got to 5+’ tall and had fruit for the first time.