There are enough types of pear i dont recall or cant look until im finished with all of them due to time constraints.
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I added a Raja about 3 weeks ago, The growth points are growing. That tree started out as Maxie, I’ve added Shinseiki, a no-name, Hosui, and Hamese to it so far.
This is the Raja graft. One of two. I let the nearby spur of the understock bloom, but will remove that spur soon.
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Can’t recall I’ve heard much about Raja Asian pear. Looked it up. It sounds very interesting. Now you’ve peaked my interest.
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I got the scion from Burnt Ridge. My Frankenpear needed another cultivar 
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If you want Korean Giant, let me know.
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Cummins nursery offerred these descriptions listed below of what they carry. Here is a link to their website http://www.cumminsnursery.com/asianpear2.htm
ASIAN PEARS
="nashi"
ASAJU Early Asian pear. Crisp and juicy. Delicate skin.
CHOJURO Found in 1895 in Japan, chance seedling of Pyrus pyrifolia. A brown to orange, russet-skinned early-midseason variety with high sugar content. White flesh; crisp; slightly aromatic;butterscotch flavor. Moderately gritty in some seasons. Fruit medium to large size, often nearly a pound; roundish, somewhat flattened. Good winter keeper. Moderately susceptible to fire blight;apparently resistant to pear scab and Alternaria black spot. Tree is precocious and productive.
DAISUI LI Another UC-Davis hybrid: Japanese Kikusui x Chinese Tse Li. Fruit large to very large, more pyriform than most Asian varieties. Skin light green, smooth; flesh white, crisp, juicy, sweet; aromatic. Excellent storage. Tree very vigorous. Not yet acquired.
HOSUI From Japanese breeding program, introduced in 1972; (Kikusui x Yakumo) x Yakumo. This is the the best-flavored of all the Asian pears! Sugar content usually 12 brix or higher but more tart in the North. It is an early season, russet type with a round globular shape and yellow to brownish-yellow skin, heavily russeted. It has a long storage life. The tree is vigorous, willowy and spreading. Good resistance to pear scab disease. Susceptible to fire blight. I always pick four at a time because three is not enough, and I can’t stop eating them!
KOSUI From a Kikusui x Wase-Kozo cross, introduced in Japan in 1959. High quality. Medium size;skin mostly russetted, light green to yellow-bronze. Resistant to Alternaria black-spot and moderately resistant to pear scab. Moderately productive. Regarded by many as highest quality of Asian pears.
NIITAKA Large fruit, yellow and brown-russetted; coarse texture. Bland flavor. Fire blight susceptible.
NIJISSEIKI (20th CENTURY) A mid-season variety, with uniform size, and sweet, slightly tart, firm and very juicy flesh. It has a globular lopsided shape and yellow green color. Good storage: 4 to 5 months in the refrigerator. Semi-spur habit. This variety has performed well at Littletree Orchards. Quite susceptible to pear scab and fire blight. It has been our most consistent cropper of high quality fruit under very strenuous conditions
OLYMPIC (KOREAN GIANT) Very large, attractive fruit, orange with russet coat. Crisp, sweet and juicy. Excellent tolerance to fire blight. One of the more cold-hardy nashi. October ripening; good storage.
SHIN LI Hybrid between Japanese variety Kikusui and Tse Li, bred at University of California-Davis. Introduced in 1988, plant patent 6076. Fine-textured, crisp, juicy, sweet. Fruit light green. Goode storage. Resistant to fire blight. Early bloom. Not yet acquired.
SHINKO Seedling of Nijisseiki, selected in Japan. Introduced in 1941. Distinctive rich, sweet flavor. Fruit medium to large size. Attractive golden russet skin; firm, crisp flesh. Ripens mid-October in New York. Fine winter keeper. Very productive. Much less susceptible to fireblight than most asian pears. Relatively low chilling: about 500 chill units.
SHINSEIKI (NEW CENTURY) Nijiesiki x Chojuro; a Japanese selection introduced in 1945. An early season variety, with uniform size, globular lopsided shape and green to yellow-green color. The flesh is sweet, slightly tart, firm and juicy. Fruit hangs on the tree well; tree ripening is best. It has excellent storage life. Self-fertile, but more productive with a pollenizer. Fire blight susceptible. Relatively low chilling requirement: about 400 chill units.
SHINSUI Early-ripening nashi with outstanding flavor. Medium sized. Beautiful orange-yellow skin. Moderately susceptible to fire blight. Precocious and very productive at Geneva. Dad’s favorite.
TSE LI Large, very sweet fruit; almost no acid; aromatic; should be stored for a while before eating – not edible right off the tree. Typical pear shape. Excellent for storage. Complex hybrid of Pyrus ussuriensis x ( P. bretschneideri ). Blooms very early, so is especially susceptible to late spring frosts; Ya Li is appropriate pollenizer. Some fire blight tolerance; seems to be damaged less by insects than Japanese varieties.
YA LI A old Chinese variety of very good quality, ripening a month after 20th Century. Pyrus ussuriensis. Large fruit. Somewhat tolerant of fire blight (probably because of early bloom time). Vigorous grower. Blooms very early, so frost susceptible – 4 or 5 days earlier than Japanese varieties. Low chilling: only about 200 chill units. Exceptionally attractive foliage, turning red in autumn.
YOINASHI A high quality new variety for the long September gap between Hosui and Shinko. Ripens mid to late September. Fruit is large, orange-brown, with a russeted finish. Flesh is crisp, richly aromatic, firm. Tree is upright and medium in vigor. Yoinashi is resistant to Pseudomonas and tolerant to fire blight.
I grow Peggy, drippin honey, charles harris and others and will update as more information is available.
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I would love to have some of them! If you have some scions available in the future please keep me on mind.
Clark,
I bought Hosui because I read that Cummins’ description. Can’t say my Hosui fits that description. It is not as good as Korean Giant. If I let it stay on a tree for a long time, texture become something soft. With the same amount of hang time, Korean Giant remains crisp. I also have Kosui. It is quite similar to Hosui.
Also, Cummins says 20th Century is productive. They forget to say that if you don’t thin it aggressively (like 80% off), 20 th will go biennial. This year is the second time that it has gone biennial on me. I am one of those who thin a lot. I still did not do enough thinning on 20th C.
Also, location, location, location. Same tree, planted in different locations could easily produce fruit that taste quite differently.
Also, taste is subjective.
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Absolutely! Hosui produced in great numbers and hands down tasted the best among my 6 in 1 Chojuro, 20th Century, Kikusui, Shinseiki and Korean Giant varieties here in San Jose, CA. Korean Giant kinda tasted meh and didn’t have the crispness or sweetness as Hosui.
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Hosui was watery last year at my friends house and mine cracked and tasted especially bad. Chojuro was incredible at my friends orchard a few miles away making all other asian pears seem blan. It was exactly like butterscotch only better. Thanks to the usda i grafted several kosui this year. Pai li is one i added more of to my multigraft tree. Ya li grows so fast the branches bend from the growth and i have to stake them up. There are many others that will take a couple of years to know much about. @mamuang your pears taste different than mine but i feel both are very good but what you said about location is very true. Many of my pears have a red color until they are older which i always find odd. Maxine , Menie, and Clara frijs stay green just like my small yellow pear. We are getting very heavy rains so im not sure this will be a good year to compare pears but hopefully as the year progresses we can get a few hot days to improve the flavor.
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Raja is the most vigorous Asian pear I have ever grown. Fruit flavor is average for an Asian pear.
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Daisui Li is the best tasting Asian pear I have ever eaten.
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Those pears sound worth trying where do they come from?
How was Shinseiki? in terms of taste and production? I planted one last fall and it had a few blooms but all of them dropped off. I should probably graft couple of other varieties next year.
Apparently it’s easy to find
https://npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/accessiondetail.aspx?id=1578792
https://www.burntridgenursery.com/DAISUI-LI-ASIAN-PEAR-Pyrus-pyrifolia/productinfo/NSASDAI/
https://ediblelandscaping.com/buyPlants.php?func=view&id=1119
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Thank you for the information. I heard of raja from time to time Anyone grown, or tasted, Raja Asian pear? but when i went to buy last time there were none. For some reason i thought raja meant red. There is growing interest in pears and its hard to keep up! Once again i went to buy Maxie this year and they were sold out but i was able to get the difficult to find Peggy pear. I will add the others from ars grin to my ARS order for next year.
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See my post above -
Raja is the most vigorous Asian pear I have ever grown. Fruit flavor is average for an Asian pear.
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Wiki is not a reliable source of information, for your consideration.
(And a few instances could not be used to draw a general conclusion. Wiki is free to speculate as it occasionally does deliberately or otherwise.)
In natural habitat P. ussuriensis breaks bud dormancy about the same time as other early budding tree species and it’s vegetative tissue carries a good degree of spring frost hardiness if you disregard the genotypes carrying (biologically, environmentally specific) negative set of genes (resulting from gene recombination). Breeding orchards utilizing P. ussuriensis have a good portion of (F1 or F2) hybrid seedling progeny of P. ussuriensis always carrying a crop no matter the spring weather.
Sorry for the irrelevant to the topic info.
I thought that I remembered someone on the old Gardenweb forum who liked it a lot. It was that vague recollection that prompted me to include it with a scion order from Cliff last year. I should check to see if any of my grafts have fruit on them this year.
When I looked, it seems there was only one person who talked about liking it and her #2 was Hosui, which has been pretty bad in my 2nd hand experience. I’ve gotten Hosui from both PYO and from Alan. He wasn’t a fan either, so I got 3 shopping bags full, which my wife and some Chinese friends loved (evidently crisp and juicy was plenty for them- no need for flavor or sweetness).
That’s strange. My 20th Century hasn’t gone biennial on me, and I am one of those people who never thin enough. I’ve had some apples go that way (I’m looking at you Sweet Sixteen…) and even Korean Giant in a partial sun spot. But 20th Century has had a crop each year. Far too many in fact, to the point I got golf balls one time. But, when I was looking for info on Raja, I noticed another person who said that 20th Century went biennial on them as well, so it isn’t just happening to you. I guess it goes back to local conditions.
That’s completely opposite what I’ve experienced in the North East.
I’m not sure if I have any left this year, but I should be able to send you some wood for it next year, if you’d like to graft it.
True, but I’ll take what I can get until someone like you drops by with better info
When you say “same time as other early budding tree species”, are you including other, more domesticated Asian pears in that? Or is P. ussuriensis earlier than them, even if it has some frost hardiness?
Bob,
Re. 20th Century, maybe, it could be that either you or I got the wrong variety. I got mine from Burntridge about 10 years ago.
I think @Bear_with_me grows a Raja pear.
In our region, I think KG is, by far, the best overall Asian pear.
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