I’m thinking two weeks minimum for mine. I put some in about a week ago and going to take out a few in another wk and see if they’ll ripen.
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So if they do not get enough fridge they will not ripen?
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Mamuang- I have ayers, but have not seen any fruit yet. Are you saying that they will ripen without ever hitting the fridge? Is it the super early pears that do not need the fridge? Looking to get some to sell, but do not have a giant cooler to ripen in, hence the question.
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By and large my understanding is Asians don’t need chilling and Europeans do.
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I picked Ayers (Euro) about 7-8 days ago. Leave them in a bowl on a counter. After 2-3 days, I started eating the one with palest green skin ( most ripened) first. It was nice and sweet. Since then, I’ve eaten 1-3 Ayers everyday.
So Ayers ripens about the same time as Moonglow, just before Bartlett? I have about 20 pear trees and put them in before I understood what was involved in ripening. Here pears are the easiest fruit tree and wanted to put a few more in, but ripening more is not going to happen. So far the no fridge list is Ayers. I heard that Seckel will ripen on the tree. Thanks for your info!
One of the complexities that affect how much chilling we think pears need is that they may get some of it on the tree, and that’s hard to quantify. A person living in the south might need to chill some pears that a person living in the north might not need to, simply because Mother Nature took care of it for him or her. I suspect that in a coolish year a pear might not ripen until it has already had enough chilling, but in a hot year they might well be ripe, even overripe-to-spoiling, but still need chilling to be at their best.
Clear as mud, right? : -)
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I don’t have Moonglow. My Barlett graft may not be true to the label and has not fruit.
Peo0le further south like @Auburn may grow Bartlett and Moonglow.
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I grow Seckel and harrowsweet, both of which ripen just fine on the tree for me. The ripening was why I picked them. I also have a graft of Elliott, but it hasn’t fruited yet, so I don’t know what is involved with ripening that one.
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I don’t grow Bartlett. Moonglow grows well at my location but I have had a difficult time determining the best way to ripen it.
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Moonglow has been difficult for me as well. I heard it needs a lot of fridge time which I am trying this year.
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Zendog- I am a little west of leesburg. When does seckle ripen for you. Picked mine last week, but think I may have been too early. When ripening on the tree do you just wait till they give a little and pick? I’m sure the cores are a little mushy, but sounds way easier.
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This seems weird to me that some pears evolved to need a refrigerator to ripen. So Thos Jefferson would have ripened some pears in his ice house?
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@mamuang thank you as you know i seldom refrigerate pears of any kind unless for storage. Some of the fine more complex european pears such as comice & bosc will certainly benefit from refrigeration. Refrigerating the hybrids eg. Douglas, kieffer, improved kieffer etc. will not change much they are not that type of pear. They do need removed from the tree when they pass the tilt test and brought inside to ripen.
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clarkinks-Is it the early ripening varieties that do not need refrigeration while the later varieties do?
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No it does not matter the time they ripen as much as its more about the texture of european pears which become melting. Your fine melting types in my experience typically benefit from brief refrigeration which is known as chilling. Hybrids keep a course texture because they are not a true european pear they are a hybrid. Many European pears like clapps favorite are so good it does not matter to much as long as its a large harvest. Bosc as an example should not really be refrigerated until they are technically ripe then refrigeration changes very good quality pears into excellent quality! Taste is subjective but here is a great article describing the chilling process briefly Rethinking the chill requirement for pear ripening | Good Fruit Grower. The article eludes to my method of ripening which is large numbers of pears at once which produces the gas responsible for proper ripening rather than refrigeration. All that said the article does discuss refrigeration time, tempetaure, and type of pear eg. melting type european pears such as williams aka bartlett, bosc, comice etc. . In smaller numbers proper chilling of true european pears is best accomplished by refrigeration. In the south as an example they do not grow true european type pears. Those type of hybrids ripen fine on the table. I harvest large numbers at once Here comes the 2016 apple and Pear harvest!. Frequently i have a harvest of hundreds of gallons at once ripening. This picture is a single picking as shown in the link above so naturally the gas is higher during ripening. Technically any pear ripens on the table with or without large quantities even if they have not been chilled as long as they are ripe when you pick them. To say a pear is ripe or unripe covers a lot of ground because many pears are eaten by people in various stages of ripeness. A spotted banana is sweet to some rotten to others, a green banana is perfect to some and not yet ripe to others. Yellow bananas without spots are what the largest group of people like. Just for the record i like mine with spots just like my pears the last stage of ripeness prior to decomposition when sugars are the highest.
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For Moonglow, it typically takes about 2-3 weeks of refrigeration based on my experience. This is after the pears pass tilt test. The color would have turned a slightly lighter green when pears are still on the tree. After 2-3 weeks of refrigeration, the color changes further into a yellowish green. That’s when I remove them from the fridge to further ripen on the counter.
If I leave them in the fridge, they will eventually reach the optimum ripeness too.
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Another article discussing that in the presense of a high amount of ethylene gas ripening is not an issue otherwise refrigeration is a must with some types of pears. Ripening Bartlett pears - Ask an Expert
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I ran across a pdf file put out by Oregon state university. According to them these don’t require cold storage
Claps Favorite
Bartlett
Seckle
Bosc
Cold storage before ripen
D’Anjou 2 moths
Comice 1 month
Packham’s triumph 1 month
Forelle 1 month
Winter Nellis 1 month
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All of my pears ripen on the tree, Ayers, Pineapple, Maxine.
I chill them, because I like cold fruit.
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