No fruits yet, all off these were grafted in spring, 2018. I’ve had the same experience as you with Japanese Golden Russet, little to no info. It shows up here on this site a few times but with no in depth info. The scion for most of these varieties came from Maple Valley, I ordered everything they had for grafting Spring’18. I’m in upstate NY on the southern edge of the Adirondacks and we didn’t get the low temps from the vortex like you folks in the mid-west. My low for the season was -17.5F which is a pretty mild winter for us. However, that temp was recorded one week before Thanksgiving last year (unusually early sub-zero temps). My pears weren’t bothered by it, but some of the apples were.
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I had -38 on the house thermometer last winter. A number of local folks took pics of their vehicle thermometers showing -40.
Pears that survived, all on OHxF 97…
Golden Spice
Ure
Early Gold
Sauvignac
Waterville
Tyson
Southworth
Walden Large
Hill
Pears that didn’t…
Beireschmitt
Vavilov
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I have Clapp’s Favorite, Luscious, Summercrisp, and Flemish Beauty, all of which survived fine, but there were very few pears on the Clapp’s this year, and light crops on the others. (East of St. Paul).
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What is your ripening order of those pears? And what is your order of flavor preference?
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Summercrisp, Clapps, Flemish Beauty, Luscious. I haven’t had many Flemish Beauties yet and the peels have been leathery, which I have heard is normal for the first couple years. Luscious is my favorite, then Clapps, then Summercrisp. The Summercrisps make great upside-down cake, peelings and all, but aren’t that tasty for fresh eating. I tried grafting a couple other varieties this spring, but the grafts failed, except for an apple I accidentally grafted to a pear tree. Go figure!
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I lost a Summercrisp and a Clapp’s Favorite to the winter of '14-'15
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fireblight is very bad here as well. killed every apple I’ve tried to grow over the last 6 yrs here.
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that kind of cold is bad enough but couple that with little snow cover its amazing anything makes it in your yard. we see -30f at least a few times a winter but our deep snow protects at least the lower trunks. it that respect, deep snow can be a godsend.
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