I asked Scott last year, I think, if it needed chill. He said a couple of weeks. However, that did not work for me so I think I picked them too early. Hopefully, not picked too late this year.
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According to his post he picked around September 15th. I would assume you would be before that.
I forgot about a bunch of mine this year, they are over the hill. Once they are yellow it’s often too late. Bright green is too early, yellow is too late. Pick the ones in between. They ripen over several weeks so there should be all shades of color on the tree at once making it not hard to aim for the middle ones.
I am eating them now after a couple weeks of storage. They are very tasty! They have a lot of bug damage though, more than my other pears.
I am getting my first Josephine Des Malines this year! Let’s see, planted in 2003 that’s 22 years. Ouch! The tree is in a bad spot but it’s also very slow to fruit, similar to Grand Champion which is it’s child.
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Hey let me update on my pears this year. Here is a picture of a few now.
Magness runt - Grand Champion half eaten - Fondante de M-L - Josephine des Malines - Docteur Desportes
Here they are in order of ripening.
Magness - I’m still not getting a very big crop of these but wow the taste is awesome. Most of them were eaten many weeks ago but there were a couple runts which are just ripening now.
Grand Champion - This pear took forever to fruit, but it’s a fantastic pear! It’s very tasty, but what I’ve been liking the most is how consistently they ripen (as long as not picked too late, when they will core rot). There is no grit or blemish, they are perfect pears to pot bottom. They are good crisp, but I like to wait until they are buttery. They have an excellent buttery texture, as good as any pear. The pear in the picture I ate a bit on but decided to wait since I prefer them more buttery. I ate it right after taking the picture and it was pearrrrrr-fection! This pear reminds me a lot of Aurora, it has a very similar skin, buttery flesh, and flavor. Both are Bartlett descendants. Aurora was too early for my heat, there were too many rotting ones. This guy is a bit later than Aurora so doesn’t seem to suffer as much.
Fondante des Moulins-Lille - I wrote some above about that. I like how it has a different flavor profile, more light, liquid, and refreshing as opposed to musky. It is super precocious and productive. The pears are not very consistent for me though, they bugs like them so they get a lot of damage, and some don’t ripen as well, Part of the problem for me is I let the tree overset, it produces gobs of pears and needs more thinning than I am giving it. The skin can be a bit thick and sometimes the pears can be gritty. I’m going to try to thin it heavily next year in hopes of getting a better crop.
The other two are mostly still on the tree and the picked ones are in the fridge so no good samples on them yet. I think the Josephine is going to be a great pear based on a couple bug-infested ones I sampled. They are doing this interesting thing where the bottom half is russet and the top half is not … very unusual. The Desportes have not been consistent but I think I also let them overset in the past. This year I thinned them better and am hoping they are better. It’s also very precocious and productive and has been a good pear some years but is prone to mealiness.
I also had a few Dana Hovey on my tiny graft which were awesome. Overall I would say Magness and Dana Hovey are the top tier for taste, they are a cut above the others in having more flavor.
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My fifth leaf Magness (on Quince) and Seckel (on OHxF87) gave me about a bushel of pears; three quarters from the former and a quarter from the latter. Both trees are about 12’ high, and 8’ wide. Seckel overset last year, and the fruits were bland, but this year the fruits of both are excellent! Some Magness specimens are too sweet.
The Magness are on the small side though, not sure if it’s the rootstock or insufficient watering.
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Hi Scott. Great that you have added your results to the thread. Some of the varieties I grow will have core breakdown if I leave them on the tree until there is a significant color change, so I have probably been erring on the side of picking too early for some. But, of course, I’ll miss others and those will go too far. I have high hopes for the late-picked FdML.
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I lost Grand Champion, a russet sport of Gorham, when I had to cut down Beurre Superfin a few years ago. It had not fruited in 8 or 10 years. However, my Gorham on OHxF333 started fruiting after 6 years. It suffered a bad fire blight strike in 2021, losing the entire central leader down to about 3 feet. It has recovered nicely and is now an open-centered tree. I agree. Taste is outstanding with a little acid to balance its sweetness. I think I mentioned that I dried a box with a dozen pears and not one had core breakdown though they were quite ripe.
Your Josephine de Malines must have really been mistreated to take that long to fruit!!! 
My original graft was in March 2012 on a multigrafted tree and is still producing lots of pears. I find that it is quite precocious when grafted onto a vigorous established rootstock. Here is Josephine on OHxF87 grafted March, 2020 and planted April 2021. If I recall, it had one fruit last year. Photo taken this morning.
ck.
It has become my favorite winter pear. I’ll pick it in late October or early November and put it in the cooler. We start eating it around Christmas or whenever the Comice run out.
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Ahmad, the Magness look great. Most of mine were small this year. If the fruit are quite ripe they are very sweet and juicy, Maybe you should not let them get as ripe, so they still have more acid. I have dried and given away all of my 2025 harvest of Magness, so we are down to the remaining Warren and Jana’s Pears.
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Yesterday, I hosted a pear tasting for our Redwood Empire Chapter of CRFG. It’s always a problem getting all the fruit perfectly ripe on a given day. I had a few varieties too ripe and a couple that could have used a few more days to get there, but mostly all were good to excellent.
Here is what we tasted:
ABBE FETEL
BEURRE HARDY
BEURRE SUPERFIN
CALIFORNIA
CONFERENCE
DANA HOVEY
ELLIOT
GEM
GORHAM
HARROW SWEET
JANA’S PEAR
KOREAN GIANT
MAGNESS
NYE RUSSET BARTLETT
ONWARD
PARAGON
POTOMAC
SHINKO
WARREN
And the winners:
JANA’S PEAR
POTOMAC
WARREN
BEURRE HARDY
MAGNESS
SHINKO
ELLIOT
PARAGON
The top four were very close. I asked the 20+ tasters to note their favourite. Warren had the most first place votes with 5, Potomac and Beurre Hardy next with 3 each, and Jana’s 2. Onward, Dana Hovey, Abbe Fetel, Magness, Beurre Superfin and Gorham each had one.
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I have grown Arganche pear here in South Dakota for about the last 10 years. I live in zone 5a. This has been an excellent pear for me, it produced for me in its 3rd year and has produced most years. I think it would be annually productive if I was better at thinning. I planted my first fruit trees 18 years ago, so thinning has become like the story of Sisyphus, futile and endless.
Arganche is a medium sized pear, its appearance is quite similar to Bartlett. The skin is thin with melting flesh with no grit. The flavor is more complex than some pears, has a flavor that people really seem to like. One person said it had a champagne type flavor, which I agree with. It doesn’t keep well, it is not a storage pear. However, the ripening period is fairly spread out, you can eat these for 3-4 weeks. I start picking them when they have a hint of yellow, then let them ripen on the counter. They start to turn in color about September 20 here. There are still a few on my tree that are green as of today. Like other pears, if you wait until they are completely yellow to pick them, they will be brown in the middle.
I can’t comment on fire blight resistance, my FB pressure is light here. This variety is available as a tree from Raintree, and I have seen a couple places selling scions.
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How about you, what are your top 5 pears? I am thinking of adding a late pear, something that ripens 3-4 weeks after Magness. I picked my Magness from Sep 1-15, and my Seckel from Sep 6-22. I have Warren, Taylor’s Gold and Dana Hovey, but they didn’t fruit yet. I am only interested in a top quality pear, same league as the ones that I have.
Harrow Sweet, Bosc and Anjou are a step or two lower than the ones I have.
Toby, I grow Klementinka, which, according to GRIN and Raintree, is the same as Arganche. Your pear looks too large. It looks like about 7.5 cm - my fruit are smaller and all ripen within a couple of weeks - early July here. I certainly don’t know how it would grow in South Dakota, but the fact that you can pick it over such a long period seems unusual for that variety. Just thinking that you may have received a mislabeled tree. I certainly have had my share of surprises!
For my education, what other pears are hardy in your climate zone?
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Great point
" Pyrus communis ‘Arganche’
Among the most flavorful early-ripening pears at the National Pear Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, OR. This dainty yellow pear from Yugoslavia, also called Mustafabey in Turkey, Zaharoasa de Vara in Romania, and Klementinka in Bulgaria, ripens in mid July there. Fruit is small like Seckel, yellow-skinned with red blush. Flesh is smooth, sweet, juicy, and firm.
Arganche is a naturally compact tree due to relatively short internodes, has abundant fruiting spurs, and is consistently productive. Resistant to scab in most areas.
Cold Hardy to USDA Zone: 4
Sun: Full Sun
Ripening Time: Very Early - July in many areas
Pollination: Needs a Pollinizer"
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The blurb on ARS-Grin says Klementinka is “possibly identical to Arganche and Mustafabey”. Is there more info somewhere that I have not looked at yet? Also, it is described as having poor texture but very early maturity. I see that Bella de Giugno shows as maturing about 2 weeks before Klementinka.
Well I feel really silly. After buying my tree from Raintree, I never went back to look at the original description on their website. Obviously I got a mislabeled tree.
Probably I do have a Bartlett, given the very similar appearance. The flavor is far better than from the store, but I guess that is the difference between fresh and fresh off the truck.
Sorry for the misinformation, and I appreciate the correction from our more knowledgeable friends. I feel good about having the tree I have, I would have never tried growing Bartlett, given the bland tasting store bought version.
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To the left, my Asian pear from seed vs Asian pear from the grocery store. The winner, my Asian pear. It’s sweeter and more refreshing. The core is smaller than the one from the store.
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@JohnS already knows this pear Klementinka ripens around 7/25/25. It is further corroborated according to sweepbjames in portland Oregon.
"Third year of fruit. It’s a small stature pear, similar to Seckel in size but with an elongated ‘neck’, and light green in color. I took note of Joseph Postman’s observation that it was good eating right off the tree. I missed hearing the part about how early it was. After totally missing/wasting it the first two years, I wanted to come up to speed on the timing. I checked the fruit yesterday thinking the greenness had modulated slightly, lifted the couple of fruit to see if they wanted to detach… nope strong resistance. Walking by today I saw a critter harvested one on the ground. Not wanting to waste of the yet meager cropping, I rapidly dispatched the sample now known, as is my habit of naming such phenom, as “squirrels choice” grade. And an entirely acceptable taste it was too, and texture. Maybe I’d say a little Bartlett like, with a smooth texture, not really crisp nor mushy as it might get when past. I’ll probably harvest the remaining two or three fruits later today , this eve, or maybe tomorrow (doubtful though since the tree rats have had a taste and likely zeroed in.) I’m Pleased that by happenstance I located it on the north side of the tree as it is of a similar vigor to the Seckel. Dana Hovey similar in size to Seckel but later to harvest, Gem and Sensation both medium sized pears are also on the same rootstock. Those three being less vigorous.
Here, a notable swelling of the Bartlett next door, suggesting that progression is surely not far behind. Perhaps we’ll get on with that harvest in a more timely fashion this year than most times past."
They are members of the HOS though at least @JohnS is also a member here. I understand it to be a very tasty pear and as you can see by the picture appears different https://forums.homeorchardsociety.org/discuss/general-forum/klementinka-pear-7-25-25/
These early pears are not any earlier than the ones i have but all offer something different in flavor
These are my delicious Admire Joanette but they came in July this year not June.
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picked the rest of the comice today. some are very very small, others only a little small. lol
these two i picked a week or two ago. they’ve been on the counter then the fridge. delicious honey flavor, very soft.
tree was “comice” from i think fedco. no other name on it. nice little pears for such a young tree.
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Ahmad,
Five favorites:
Beierschmitt
Warren, Jana’s Pear and Magness - they are almost the same
Now from here I’m listing pears that are picked and stored in the refer.
They will sometimes ripen without chilling, but usually need chill to ripen properly.
El Dorado/Winkleman - same pear with different names
Comice - Taylors Gold is very similar
Josephine de Malines
But others that are great when perfectly ripe:
Before Beierschmitt:
Harrow Delight
Butirra Rosata Morettini
After Beierschmitt and ripeninng along with the Warren triad which we store for 2 to 3 months in the refer:
Gorham
Onward
Harrow Sweet
Beurre Hardy, aka French Butter Pear
Potomac - does not need chilling to ripen perfectly. This one may move up to the top 5, but then I would have to delete one.
Dana Hovey
Leopardo Morettini
Paragon
Elliot
Beurre Bosc - also a great cooking pear
And for cooking, Shenandoah.
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I smile every time this comes up. Is this a dialect thing or an inside joke perhaps?
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