Each year I think that I have figured out when and how to best pick and ripen the Moonglow pear. I still haven’t figured it out but they are much sweeter this year. After picking my Orient pears I was thinking that I will start checking the Moonglow. Yesterday I noticed that they had all gotten much lighter color. Each year before I mostly picked them early and they took a long time in the refrigerator to sweeten up and even then they were not as good as they should be. This year they are sweet off the tree in fact I probably picked them late. I put a bag in the refrigerator to see what effect some chill time would have on them. The small one in front bloomed late and didn’t have any seeds in it but still had a good sweet taste.
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I’ll have to check mine, still haven’t gotten good fruit off it.
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What are your thoughts on Moonglow now?
Do you have photos of truly ripe ones?
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Ripening has been unpredictable to me. The tree has been almost disease free in my area. I’m keeping a few limbs just for pollination purposes.
Here’s a picture of mine picked on Sep 8. It’s not the earliest one but I took a picture because it’s the largest of all my Moonglow pears.
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I planted a moonglow because my uncle wanted one and I was the sucker to grow it 
It produced a couple nice fruits this year but I wasn’t too impressed with the flavor this first time around. I didn’t take notes, but the big thing I remember is that the skin seemed to have an off taste to it.
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I see that you are in Zone 9 B. Where are you located? I’m impressed that Moonglow gets enough chilling hours in that warm of climate.
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I’m in SF Bay Area. Moonglow’s published chill hour requirement is around 400-500hrs. We typically have no problem with fruiting plants that require 600hrs or less. So far, the only winter we had low chilling was the year that we had severe drought. The chill hour that year dropped to less than 300. I don’t remember if Moonglow fruited that year though as the grafted branch wasn’t that productive yet.
This year and last year, we had above 700 chill hours. My 2nd year Blake’s Pride graft gave me two fruits this year.
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Got two nice ripe moonglow pears this year in LA area. Picked begining of August when I lifted the pear and the stem followed the pear. Placed in fridge 10-14 days and then ripened on counter 7 days until top becomes slightly soft. Worked for me. Juicy sweet pear with less grit than the ones I grew up with in the upper South.
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Congratulations glad they were good tasting. I only had a few Moonglow and they were also good.
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