I am in Northeast PA, with my first crop of KG. I have not lifted any of my KG to see if they fall off. However, I am also growing Yoinashi, and they are ripening right now (which is what the ripening calendar from Adams County Nursery indicates is the normal ripening time). Oddly, my peaches came late this year and my grapes came early.
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Hmm…I will wait until you guys start picking. Don’t want to find out I picked too early since I have only 3 fruits to play with here…
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I grafted on a bunch of KG this spring, provided by @mamuang. The grafts all took but no fruit yet. Just from reading this forum, it seems early for KG, I thought it was a later fall pear, but I could totally be wrong.
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It’s hard to pick KG too late. In my zone, I let them hang until Nov last year because I could 
.
You are like half a zone warmer and may have more hotter days. If you can let them hang till late Sept before first pick, it’d be good. It has a long picking time. Once your first show dark seeds, you can pick the rest or let some hang for more days.
All mine that were dropped lately were a courtesy of darn squirrels. Their seeds were white even though the fruit were large.
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Two KG dropped today. Not sure why. Cut the bigger of the two. The seeds are not very dark. It tasted starch. It will need at least two weeks to ripen. Best if 3 weeks or more. I probably will pick the first few by mid Oct.
Close up pic of seeds.
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That one looks to be about the same size as mine. Do you do the tilt test for Asian pear too?
Mine is about to go through the chicken wire. I have to take it off and wrap it with a bigger piece so it won’t touch the fruit.
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I have KG for almost 10 years so I know when to pick. No lift test needed. Also, it has a long ripening time. Hard to pick too late.
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I grafted two sticks of Korean Giant this year and was surprised by the amount of growth. These were grafted on Bartlett espalier. The top graft forked and grew 5 to 6 feet on both limbs. I let this grow straight up with a plan to cut it up for more scion.
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I picked my Korean Giant today because hubby kept saying it smelled ripe. First one looked like below. Only 1/4 was edible. Overripe. Not very crunchy but very sweet. Then I picked another one. That was crunchier. No damage to the inside. Not as sweet as the first one. I have another one left on the tree. Last one. I’ll let it stay there for few more days.
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@Susu. Hope you get one that is perfectly ripe. Everyone at the house and others I gave a sample to says that KG is the best pear they have ever had.
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Susu,
I am so surprised that you KG was overripe in zone 6 at this time. Mine is still starchy. I could not recall having their inside looked like that even when I left them on the tree until Nov.
It looked quite odd.
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You don’t think it’s because it’s overripe? Do you think some sort of pressure on the fruit could cause that? I had three layers of chicken wire around these 3 fruits and i kept adjusting the chicken wire to make room inside for the growing fruit. But the one with brown inside came real close to the chicken wire. Not enough to cut through it but I could see it’s pressing against it real tight. I wonder if that caused the internal damage?
Oh and even the undamged one was ripe. I mean not starchy at all. That’s why I thought the other one was overripe.
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It looked bruised more than overripe.
Since the seeds are dark, you can pick the last one.
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@mamuang it looks like mine are ripening up to early also. I cant figure out why but they did. Better keep a close eye on yours. Winter was here an extra month this year and the pears got ripe early which has never happened before.
Never had that issue. I tend to leave them alone for quite some time. All of mine that ripened early always because of having bugs in them. Those fruit would turn reddish brown and droppecd early. The flesh was soft.
Clean fruit would have greenish brown color and the flesh is sweet and crunchy.
All I can say than, @Susu’s fruit suffered damage, somehow.
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Today I picked up all KG and Shin Li. My question is how to store the pears.
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I store my pears in the refrigerator enclosed in large Ziploc bags. Any that has blemishes goes in separate bags.
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I want to thank the folks who’ve recommended this pear. It’s my best fruit that’s ripe right now. I probably should have tried them 2 weeks ago, but the texture is still good.
It’s not quite as tasty as my few Hosui were, but this set much better, was trouble-free, and generally unblemished. This is the first season with fruit, but looks to be a winner. The Chojuro bore well too, but their window of good eating was too small. I picked most of them after the texture had degraded.
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Korean Giant like so many other pears this year has an only mediocre taste. Heavy amounts of rot on the pears greatly reducing the harvest. They taste about half as good as it is some years. The longer we grow things the more we find out. Drippin Honey we’re about twice the quality of every Asian pear this year here besides kosui. Drippin Honey in wet climates can have issues with cracking. Kosui looks promising but was not as good as dripin honey. The early drippin honey this year were unimpressive as well in all fairness. Stink bugs have been bad right now so I went ahead and picked a few more KG since leaving them on the tree is only causing more damage. I took a photo of the rot and the stink bugs causing damage. If you squish them between your fingers you will know quickly why they are called stink bugs as the smell is strong. Really like this pear most years but I now see what others were saying when they did not share my enthusiasm. It seems to have to do with the high amounts of rain and 1 month less growing season than normal. Makes a bigger difference than anyone would think.
This is the type of damage we are getting.
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