I show one grafted New World. IIRC, @Lucky_P was my source. He can probably tell you more about it. IME, it is a fast growing healthy tree. I have not observed any fireblight damage so far. My tree has not yet blossomed.
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Not me. Iāve never heard of āNew Worldā.
New World is listed in Cliffordās Dec. 2020 listā¦ IDK if he still has it, but probablyā¦
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@39thparallel, I dug through messages and found New World came from Anjeerfarmer early in 2023. I can take a picture of the tree tomorrow if you would like to see growth habit. It tends toward very vertical rapid growth.
I would be glad to send you a scion, however, I know you are looking for something you can propagate from a proven producing tree. My tree wonāt produce for at least another year, maybe two. If you still want a stick of scionwood, we can work out sending it when I send Bell which I promised you a few months ago.
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That would be awesome! I have a friend with a huge field of Callery. If there is enough wood, I will top work something there and have it in production fast. I found an old post on New World. It looks impressive New World hybrid Asian pear in Spain - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit
New world is discussed here
@KYnuttrees grows it
@noogy @tonyOmahaz5 @milehighgirl @JohnS and others were discussing this back in 2012 when there was a gardenweb before houzz bought them out
" New World Asian pear cultivar
12 years ago
Iāve never been a fan of Asian pears; I like mine soft. (Of course Iāve only eaten store-bought ones). On a lark I bought some at Costco and one of my sons just loved it. He said he always hated the squishiness of pears.
So now I am thinking about getting an Asian and I donāt have a clue what to try. I was on Cliff Englandās site and was wondering about the New World cultivar he is selling. It is a cross between Bartlett European pear and Korean Giant Asian Pear.
I donāt have a lot of fireblight issues here, but we do have a short growing season.
Has anyone here tried the New World or does anyone have any other suggestions for me?
Comments (9)
Tony
12 years ago
MG,
I have not try the new cross from Cliff yet. But I have 15 plus varieties. So far I really like Olympic giant, Yoinashi, Shinko, New century, and Tennosui.
Tony
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Noogy
12 years ago
Mh,
If into october is a challenge you could pair yoinashi with hosui, even Atago for earliest, but I canāt vouch for it.
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Drippinā Honey Asian PearFinding an Asian Pear treeAsian Pear Planting SpotMultigraft Asian pear tree on ohxf333 rootstock
maryhawkins99
12 years ago
I planted my New world pear in jan. No fruit yet of course. So far, itās growing like any pear. At least fireblight hasnāt gotten it.
Cliff has only offered this pear for a year, so heās the only one I know of that can vouch for it.
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skyjs
12 years ago
I like the refreshing, light ones like Shinseiki and Ya Li,
but I also like 20th century pear for flavor.
Chojuro has a rum kind of flavor and is a good keeper.
Korean Giant (DOn Bae is an amazing keeper.
Mine have broken branches the last two years because they set too much fruit. Youād think Iād learn , but apparently not yet.
John S
PDX OR
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milehighgirl
Original Author
12 years ago
I asked Cliff about pollination of New World and he said it is pollinated by European pears. His is grafted onto Calleryana and Iām not sure that would be the best for my area, although he said it is hardy to zone 4.
Honestly I am leaning toward Yoinashi. Cummins has it on OHxF 97 and Bay Laurel has it on Betula.
Does Yoinashi need another Asian for pollination? I currently have 2 Euros; Red Clappās Favorite and Moonglow. My neighbor has a flowering pear.
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Tony
12 years ago
MG,
The flowering pear should pollinates the Yoinashi.
Tony
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maryhawkins99
11 years ago
Looks like Iām going to lose my New World to fireblight. Its been a bad year for fb here.
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Tony
11 years ago
Bob,
Sorry to hear about your New World Asian pear. I hope you did some back up grafts from the original tree. When I buy any new dormant tree, I usually do a couple back up graft on some branches, just in case the original tree die.
Tony
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maryhawkins99
11 years ago
Thanks Tony. No, I didnāt make back up grafts, probably should have. I think Iāll move on to other pears, see how they do.
Iām curious how the Harrow Crisp, Delight, & Gold might do here; Iām not sure if I have enough chill hours, but theyāre supposedly very fb resistant."
Scions are very easy to come by
I personally dont grow this asian pear because of the fact that many people i knew lost theirs to fireblight. Maybe i need to grow it personally and help to better document it. At first i thought i had grown it once though it seems that was new century and not new world. I never have grown this as far as i can tell. New century is another very common asian pear New Century Asian Pear Tree - Stark Broās
Do these two black stems in the middle of an otherwise healthy Flemish Beauty look like fireblight? Had a busy summer so wasnāt watching it too closely, not sure how it progressed or what the leaves looked like
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12 years later, Iām still breaking branches. Too much going on in the summer to notice. I think Shinseiki is a subtle, refreshing flavor. Ya li looks like a Euro pear, but it tastes like Shinseiki. The Asians have a more subtle flavor. Not everyone is into it. Korean Giant isnāt my favorite flavor. Kinda bland. But a great keeper. Fresh organic fruit for free in February is at a premium.
John S
PDX OR
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@39thparallel @clarkinks My New World tree is about 14 feet tall with over 6 feet of new growth this year including 4 side branches. I can easily cut 5 or 6 feet of scionwood. I will put it down for next spring. Please feel free to get scions elsewhere if you can find them from a known producing tree.
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@clarkinks thanks Clark. I guess some amputation is in order.
I seem to have a fair amount of fireblight for being in a dry climate. My pear trees were all planted in the last 12 months though, so maybe they were already harboring when purchased. I did lose an entire young Kieffer to what I think was fireblight but that one just wasnāt very healthy overall.
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there are 2 sand pear hybrids seckel x keiffer that would seem to have very good FB resistance (because resistance is coming from both kieffer and Seckel) and good flavor āsuperior to Kiefferā and Corvallis has them
just curious if anyone has them and why they are not more common; why grow kieffer if this is available?
the descriptions came from the 1957 pear summary at Corvallis (which is too large to upload) and both were genotyped in 2020 so they are available at corvallis
looks like @clarkinks already knows about this of courseā¦
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yes thatās me and it is very fireblight resistant
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I talked to my neighbor today that received some pears from another neighborā¦ I can see that pear tree from the road it looks like its nearly been on fire from fireblight, the trunk is rottenā¦ and it gets zero love ever. As far as anyone knows it may be 100 yrs old. I think its probably a Kieffer.
She said the pears were rock hardā¦and she canned them all.
I found a similar pear in an abandoned yardā¦ tree was probably 10 yrs old or soā¦ They have been in the fridge for 3 weeks and still are rock hard. Probably also a Kieffer.
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@marten update on your Asian pears? Iām considering getting one spring 2026. Lots of fire blight pressure here in middle Tennessee. Suggestions?
My 3 yr old Shinseiki graft died this year of fireblight.
Iām new to growing pears and just got a Korean Giant and a Hosui. Does this look like fireblight? I pruned all the leaves and all new growth looks even worse. The picture is the Korean Giant. The Hosui seems to be doing well but the leaves are a little curled. Thanks for the help!
Sorry to hear that. Same experience. Two of my Shinseiki grafts grew well, even set fruit. By 3rd or 4th year. The whole branches were dead by fire blight. They were grafted on 20th Century. 20th C has gotten fire blight here and there but it has not spread or killed the tree.
I was going to just write a quick answer, but I am long-winded and youāre getting a mini-treatise instead.
When I first planned my orchard, I was careful to select only those pear varieties with a reputation for FB resistance because I also have fireblight in North Georgia ā bad enough that I had to finally remove my apple trees. I read over some academic literature and it seems that Shinko gets top marks for FB resistance, but the others I have planted also have a good reputation.
For Asian pears, I have Shinko, 2 x Korean Giant, Raja (newly planted and only on its second season), and the hybrids Daisui Li and Shin Li. The Shinko and Korean Giants are on callery, and the hybrids are on OHxF-87. The Raja is on BET (which is a bit of a gamble due to its higher FB susceptibility).
Precocity
Shinko was the first to bear, and now bears heavily every year. I got only a couple Korean Giants last year, but this year, both trees are loaded with developing fruit. Daisui Li and Shin Li flowered for the first time this year and set a handful of fruit apiece. If the trend holds, Iāll have more pears than Iāll know what to do with in another year or so. Notably, my Raja produced flowers on only its second season in the ground, but I plucked them in order to induce more vegetative growth this season.
Taste
I have only really personally tried (1) Asian pears from the grocery store, including named cultivars like Chojuro, and (2) fruit from my Shinko tree. (My family members sniped all of the Korean Giants last year and said they were very good, but I canāt personally do a pear-to-pear comparison.) It is worth noting that Shinko gets quite a few negative reports from growers in other regions, with some describing it as being bland, but that has not been my experience. The ones off my tree are quite sweet, with excellent crunchy texture, and are very juicy:
My Shinko fruit does not have the ābutterscotchā flavor that some varieties (like Chojuro) tend to develop, but it is crisp and refreshing, and is at least as good as any Asian pear that Iāve ever gotten from a store. (Of course, this might be due to the fact that homegrown fruit is usually just better.) The fruit is good even if it is picked a week before ripening.
I am particularly excited to try Daisui Li this year. I remember that @castanea gave it very high marks in a post long ago, and so far in my fruit-growing venture (which includes jujubes and chestnuts), @castaneaās taste preferences have reliably predicted my own.
I have heard lots of great things about Drippinā Honey ā many people like @clarkinks who are in a position to know say that it either is outright the best-tasting Asian pear or in a small group at the top ā but it is probably more susceptible to fireblight than the ones that I already have, and this deters me. As much as I would like to grow Drippinā Honey, I have a good thing going right now and donāt want to risk adding in a potential FB reservoir to the club.
Flowering time
This year, all of my Asian pears flowered during the same week in about mid-March, with Shinko being the tail-end Charlie. As a result, I donāt think there would be pollination problems with any of these varieties at least when grown in the South (but I also have some European pears like Warren that bloomed around the same time, so I canāt say for sure who is pollenizing whom).
Disease / pests
From what Iāve read, Shinko probably has the best resistance to fireblight of all Asian pear cultivars, but the others I have selected were all chosen on the basis of their reputation for being highly resistant.
So far, none of my Asian pears have been afflicted with any disease ā not even a single fireblight strike. This is remarkable because I know for certain that there is an aggressive fireblight strain in the area, and several of my pears are planted near to where some mature apple trees had to be removed due to repeated massive fireblight infections. Conditions should have been good for fireblight this year: a very wet spring with mild temperatures and all of the pears in bloom, but they were all either spared by chance or managed to resist infection.
Plum curculios have made an appearance, but for now, they seem to prefer my European pears. More concerningly, I have definitely observed brown marmorated stink bugs, but for now, their numbers are few (this could change in a single season, though). Since the wasp that parasitizes them (Trissolcus japonicus) has not yet made its way to Georgia, I may eventually have to start spraying the Asian pears with Surround to hold them off, but so far, I have not had to spray for anything.
Other than that, the only other pest of note has been aphids, which tend to attack the tender new growth in the spring. So long as they are not protected by ants, the natural predators (ladybugs and the like) arrive and make short work of them about a week after the aphid population booms, and no intervention is required. When ants are present to defend the aphids, dealing with the ants is sufficient to solve the problem.
Overall, I am very pleased with how productive and low maintenance the Asian pears have been. (On the other hand, I am still new at all this, and I remember thinking the same thing about my kaki persimmons until KSDS killed half of them over just two seasons; pride goeth before a fall.) The biggest work involved so for has not been spraying for diseases or pests, but dutifully spreading / tying down branches in order to develop good scaffold limbs ā a chore that will hopefully no longer be necessary in a few years.
Rootstock / vigor
This is a little controversial to say these days, but I think callery is probably the best rootstock for Asian pears in the South. Itās true that callery are invasive, and everywhere, but thereās no putting the genie back in the bottle, and I guess thereās a reason they are so successful at colonizing this habitat. They have zero problem with the heavy clay soil, and handle both drought and soggy conditions very well. My Asians on callery are more vigorous than the ones on OHxF 87 and recovered from deer attacks better, and the ones on callery all came into production sooner. And last year, when we had an unusually hot and dry summer with several straight weeks of hot sun and no rain, the trees on OHxF started looking sad and shedding leaves, while the ones on callery remained pretty much fine.
Also, the rabbits are much fonder of OHxF bark ā they almost destroyed my Shin Li before I protected it ā and donāt seem to appreciate the flavor of callery, usually leaving it alone after taking out a strip.
I am experimenting with BET on my Raja tree, and it looks to be every bit as tough and vigorous as callery if not even more so, but sooner or later I am sure I will have to deal with fireblight, and my understanding is that BET is more susceptible. I would hate to lose a tree just because I overlooked a fireblight-infected sucker one week.
Appearance
The Asian pears are all attractive trees, and in my opinion, look a little more ornamental than European pear trees. My Shinko is notable for having particularly dark green leaves and for apparently having a more naturally spreading growth habit. Another standout for attractiveness is Daisui Li, which develops rather large leaves that are red when they first unfurl and makes the tree look striking when it is in bloom and covered with white flowers and young red leaves:
The other hybrid, Shin Li, also has large leaves that are initially reddish, but they arenāt quite as impressive.
Recommendations
I am a little biased by my own experience, but if I had to pick two Asian pears for growing in the South, one of them would be Shinko. Top marks for disease resistance, a particularly attractive tree, precocious, productive, and as far as Iām concerned, the fruit is quite good when grown in this region.
The conservative choice for the second would be Korean Giant ā it also has a good reputation for disease resistance, and although I havenāt tasted a homegrown one myself yet, the fruit gets top marks for quality from most people online, and my family members who purloined my fruit last year endorsed it. If it is indeed better than Shinko, as I expect, Iāll be happy. Also, Korean Giant and Shinko seem to be advertised in a lot of places as being good pollination partners, so there would be less risk on that front.
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