How early does Shipova ripen in the northern states? Most places I see it listed as August - would that be early August or late?
@HighandDry Any update on your shipova 12 months on? You may have had a second large crop to trial out by now. I am also thinking of one for here in Ireland but your feedback is exactly what I need right now.
I did have another large crop on my shipova this year. I am again disappointed in the flavor. It is better than last season and my tree did not defoliate as it did last year, but it also did not grow a lot as in years past. I expect some of that is was due to the crop and probably also related to the defoliation issue from last year (I expect I lost a significant portion of root in that process as well as the leaves), so the tree was/is still recovering.
The fruits have a nice texture, juicy and slightly breaking, somewhere in between a standard soft European pear and a crisp Asian pear, and the flavor falls more toward the Asian pears, somewhat sweet and simple. There is no perfumed complexity as with European pears. I allowed the tree to harvest itself across the past two months, and the fruit has steadily sweetened, but itās still not very sweet. My guess at brix would be 10. Iāll quantify that when I purchase a refractometer this week. A handful of fruit are still hanging on through several light frosts. Iām going to let them stick it out until they drop on their own to see if they get much better.
At least one other here reports shipova as pretty sweet and flavorful, so Iām a bit confused and disappointed, since my tree fruit seems to me to be much sweeter and complex as a rule compared to fruit Iāve eaten grown in other locales. This isnāt universal, so perhaps shipova is simply one of those fruits that donāt like my local climate and/or soil.
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I put in a Shipove 20 years ago near Anacortes WA and it is now a really handsome tree. No fruit for 10 years and does not even flower in alternating years but of the 30 miscellaneous trees in my little orchard it is the last one I would remove. Unusual flavor, very sweet, does not keep at all well but dries better than my apples keeping its unusual flavor and sweetness.
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I grafted it onto aronia a couple of years ago. About to bloom for the first time. Also Ayers, and maybe Honeysweet and/or Conference.
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I dont have a Shipova tree but tasted one at a nearby orchard. It was one of the wow fruits that day. Very sweet, melting flesh. Definitely better than most pears Iāve tasted. At that time, I hadnāt heard the name Shipova so it left a lasting impression.
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What a timely revisiting of this thread yesterday by murky. My shipova has fruited annually for four years now. I sample fruits every year, usually one or two bites before I toss it aside. Itās never more than blandly sweet with decent enough texture, but almost all of my Euro pears are vastly superior, and 95% of the shipova fruit end up on the ground, eventually finding my compost pile. Iām not even tempted to try making preserves, cooking or drying them.
Iāll be grafting four new-to-me pears onto my shipova espalier next week using OHxF 87 interstems. Looking forward to eating better fruit from that tree.
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Thanks for the follow-up. I wonder if its something about your conditions that favors pear fruit quality but not Shipova. From what youāve described, it sounds like actually sub-standard fruit, not simply differences in taste preferences. Iām especially thinking of mention of estimated 10 brix.
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While the Brix might not high. I wouldnāt want to declair it substandard. What I read about it is it makes a wonderful process pear. Seedless and she size of a crab apple. sounds great.
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Maybe I wasnāt very clear. Iām assuming that the people raving about Shipova tasted fruit with a significantly higher than 10 brix sugar content. I think that HighanDryās must be underperforming relative to those of people who say they are great.
Iād had bland and uninteresting dragonfruit the first couple dozen times I tried them. That left me surprised that people rave about them. Iāve since had some in the pretty good to very good range and now can easily imagine them being superlative. Before that, it was difficult.
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I get it. I have a passionate hate rant about red skinned white fleshed dragon fruit. But I love with a passion flavorful cultivars and Tuna(Espanola).
I think you are on to something here after reading this thread and then going and looking at other reports, It seems like many places that praise this are pretty cold and wet so I was thinking the heat and lack of water that maybe makes most fruit sweeter does the opposite with shipova?
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Thatās an interesting premise regarding cold, wet conditions making for better shipova than hot, dry growing conditions. That could certainly be the issue. I grow many apples, and while those that grow well in my conditions are scintillating, with much higher Brix and, Iād guess (since I donāt measure it at this time) in many cases, also higher acid, there are plenty of varieties that perform poorly here but do well in cooler conditions.
I did Measure Brix on a few shipova in the last couple of years, and they got up to 15-17, possibly higher, but Iād have to chase my notes to be 100% accurate. Even at that reasonable sugar level, they were uninteresting.
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Iām glad you gave it a few years, Yeah just your descriptions of speaking of bland cardboardish and boring are just polar opposites of what you read from many english and other european accounts and when you look at mainly where they grow it seems like this would be better for PNW or NE in the states. Everyone really described complex melting luscious euro pear attributes and so it must just not make the best fruit in your area (and sadly mine too)
i put in a shipova on aronia last year. its 3ft. ill give a review on it once i get fruit. if it likes cold and wet, it will do well here.
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I have to decide whether to get off my butt and support my Shipova. I grafted it onto established aronia a couple of years ago. The diameter of the Shipova portion is probably at least twice as big as that of the aronia, and now its about to bloom for the first time.
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Shipova happens to be one of my favorite fruits, due to how its character changes during ripening. I grow in W WA, so in the cool summer/high moisture in fall/winter/spring conditions that this thread is discovering may be particularly advantageous for getting the best flavor out of this fruit. First tried the fruit from Burnt Ridge Nursery, and enjoyed the Asian pear/Euro pear mixture of flavor and texture it presented. Now I know it was probably mature, but not completely ripe. Before the fruit develops the pink ākissā in one spot, after the yellow skin turns to vivid gold, the flavor and texture remind me of a less juicy Asian pear. Not bad, but not great either.
At the peak of ripeness, once the pink kiss arrives and the yellow skin has turned vivid, the flavor and texture changes. It develops the slick, sweet, smooth texture of a good Euro pear and the flavor offers hints of the tropics - some describe it as guava, some as mango, some papaya - but Iāve never had a Euro pear that tasted like that! Really, really good!
And now for the VERY surprising part: this fruit will last for months in refrigeration. I had about 2 dozen that I left in the crisper, and for a while I just didnāt want to muck them out. After about 2 months I decided I needed the space for something else, and on a hunch I tried one. This time the flavor was totally different - intensely sweet, rich, with a distinctive almond flavor. It was incredibly good. So I think we can safely say this fruit will blet, like medlar, but without the large seeds to manage (unlike medlar). I think this superpower comes from its Sorbus heritage - having tried the fruit of Sorbus domestica, I now realize they both share that distinctive sweet almond flavor and soft, smooth texture when bletted.
Iāve experienced Shipovaās biennial bearing tendency - which I donāt like - so Iām going to try to heavily thin my next big crop in its earliest stages, to see if I can keep the tree from exhausting itself. Itās also an exceptionally lovely tree in the landscape, with its distinctive pyramidal growth habit and the grey, felty leaves - itās certainly a keeper for me.
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I agree Shipova has a totally unique taste - your āguava-like on top of melting Euroā is a great description. I have dried them and juiced them, but found fresh eating to be the best. You get the subtle taste profile without being it being too intense - which can happen when dried.
The only drawback is waiting the obligatory 8-10 years for fruiting! Once the tree starts to fruit, though, Iāve found youāre pretty much guaranteed some fruit every year, some years more productive than others.
Another advantage for maritime growers is that the tree still thrives sitting in a pond of winter water, like this year!
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