Is anyone growing this one? I got scions from the USDA 3 years ago, and my tree set fruit for the first time this year. I’m very anxious to taste this one. It’ll be one of the first fruit from pears I grafted. It’s on OHxF87 and is a moderate grower. The tree hasn’t been affected by fireblight. It has been unaffected by pear blister mites while most of my Asian pears get some damage. The blossoms showed average frost hardiness with about the same amount of damage as my other pears. It also bloomed at the same time as my Asian pears. It’s reportedly a seedling of Pyrus ussuriensis. I think this is known as harbin pear, which is also used as a rootstock from my understanding. The leaves are smaller and thinner than most of my Asian pears but larger than the ones on my Euro pears.
Here’s some info taken from the USDA.
“ Okolo (PI 541908).-Originated in Brookings, South Dakota, by N.E. Hansen, South Dakota Agriculture Experiment Station. Introduced in 1940. Open-pollinated seedling of Pyrus ussuriensis. Fruit: diam. about 2 1/4 inches; pyriform; skin light yellow with minute russet dots; stem long and stout; flesh white, firm, juicy, with delicious flavor. Tree: bears well. - Brooks and Olmo Register of Fruit and Nut Varieties”
I found someone recording a brix of 21 on this variety. This seems very sweet for a pear from what I understand.
Are you certain they are not Quince? They resemble a quince that emerged from my pear tree below the graft a year or so ago, only this spring did I notice it was not a pear! Here is my quince photo in flower!
Looks like the same flower as yours.
I’m pretty sure mine is a pear. The flowers are in clusters while yours are single. Also, the leaves on your tree look fuzzy or rough while mine are very smooth and almost glossy. I don’t have any quince trees and pretty sure I have never seen one in person though.
I have both quince and pears, and asian pears.
And from leafs and flowers and bark i can confirm pharmerDrewee has something from the pyrus family. I suspect EU pear. But it could be asian or a cross of the both.
@PharmerDrewee
I don’t know of that variety. But i am curious. 3 years for that many flowers is not bad though!
I’ve got several Okolo grafted to ussurian rootstocks. Mine were grafted in 2019. This far north, I won’t expect any blossoms for at least another few years.
The USDA sent me 2 ‘Okolo’ scion this spring, I grafted them to ‘OHxF 87’ just like you did, so far both scion have not fallen off. In 21 days it will have been 3 months since I grafted the scion on. Based upon my research the fruit sounds better than average, yet not as good as the very best. I have not tried the fruit yet. Yes it sounds like one of the sweetest pears there is, about as much sugar as the pears of ‘Docteur Desportes’ which has a brix of about 22.
Okolo had an strong sweet/tart flavor. It wasn’t the most refined pear, and I did not like the texture very much. The texture was coarse, and hard to chew. Maybe it could be good for turning into juice, but half the fruit also cracked from the rain while none of my Asian pears were fazed at all. They also weren’t very large, but the other faults are why I really wouldn’t encourage others to grow it if your climate is good enough for Asian pears like Shin Li or Jilin, which have a somewhat similar flavor.
I know this is an old topic, but there’s not a lot of posts regarding Okolo on here.
The two I grafted to Ussurian rootstocks in 2019 have proven to be vigorous growers (at least here in central MN). Both may have a few fruit buds now, I can never tell very well with pears. If they bloom this year, that will be by far the quickest blooms I’ve had from any pears I’ve bench grafted to any rootstock (OHxF 97, OHxF 87, Ussurian, communis)
It appears that most if not all Asian pears can have grit, including the most famous Asian pears, actually the famous ‘Kosui’ Asian pear, the flesh of it’s fruit is just as coarse, and just as gritty as ‘Okolo’ is. I wonder if something as simple as climate, or as root stock could make asian pear fruit more coarse, and gritty/more gritty!
Hopefully it does better for you. I have 7 fruiting Asian pear trees that produce much better fruit so there was no reason to keep Okolo around in my suburban backyard.
A number of things like a pear being overipe, stinkbug infestation etc. can cause gritiness in pears. Kosui is a good pear in my experience. It is not fireblight tolerant.
Kosui gets numerous fireblight strikes. Many descriptions disagree, but this has been a high fireblight area the last 2 years Kosui Asian Pear Tree - One Green World
Okolo got fireblight but did not die from it when I ignored the problem. The FB would kill new growth and spread to 1 year old wood. It stopped when it reached thicker branches.
