Just curious if anyone has some quince fruit of different varieties for sale or know of any farmers who have many varieties and can sell/ship. I’d be interested in a box of a few different varieties to try (esp the Russian mild ones and Van Deman which i read has a spicier flavor).
I used to grow so many but they were in a bad spot when neighbors put up large pine trees along the fenceline and most have died.
Great post, Hristo.
I got the scions from the Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis. Kuganskaya and Crimea were both called Krimskaya. I can’t tell them apart. They are both excellent and good for eating fresh as well. Aromatnaya, in my opinion, is just not good enough to eat fresh. Kaunching is better than Aromatnaya, but not as good as Kuganskaya or Crimea. I freeze most of my quince to eat during the rest of the year. Freezing makes it easier to eat in chunks. It’s not so dense and much juicier afterwards. We don’t really have Fireblight up here in pNWet so I can’t tell which are susceptible.
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Hi! Thank you for your post, it’s very interesting!
You freeze your quince boiled or raw? Thanks!
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I freeze it raw, because my varieties are ones that you don’t have to cook.
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This may be the stupid question of the season, but I hope you will be kind in replying: Down the street from my house stands a quince tree loaded with fruit. We have had cold to 8°F a few nights back.
Can that fruit be salvaged?
Should I offer to bring my ladder anyway & strip the tree to offset possible winter damage?
This was the fall that never happened: temps in the 70s all through October and then two weeks with nary a thaw. Most shade trees across town have leaves clinging to them. Weird and a bit worrying. My own fruit trees have retained leaves except Ersinger plum on St. Julian A and Bud118 rootstock. Bardsey on EMLA26 has dropped about 60% of its leaves. I individually cut leaves off upright growth on my most vulnerable young trees.
I have no experience with quince trees, but note this one nearby shows no signs of disease or breakage from crop load - yet. Thanks!
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Yes you can harvest it but you will need to use them quickly. They likely will turn brown when they thaw. Have eaten frozen apples, pears, persimmon etc. They are delicious. Nature froze them for you.
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Was anyone ever able to graft (or even eat) ‘Valdivia’s Yellow’ Quince?
I got some scionwood from him a few years ago but unfortunately none of the grafts made it.
Just curious if its true if it really is super yellow inside.
How are the quince doing? I got myself a karp’s sweet and it finally started to wake up.
I find quince a delight to grow and eat. The tree itself is so beautiful with its gnarled form and big pink blossoms. And it’s a tough one too. The 26 degree frost that did a number on apples here had no effect on quince. They’ll grow happily in shallow soil with little access to water. Many old farmsteads in this area have a quince tree in the dooryard. It was used a the primary source of pectin until that became commercially available. Most are probably seedlings. They’re quite good, nearly on par with most cultivars IME.
Smyrna would obviously be a Turkish variety, given that it’s the name of a place in Anatolia. I have a close friend who moved to the Us from Turkey about 20 yrs ago. When I told him I’d acquired a couple of Turkish quince from GRIN, he gave me some interesting info. The one variety, ‘ekmek’ is the common type in Turkey. The name means “bread.” The fruit is very large, on the dry side (for a quince) and used only for cooking and processing. The other variety I acquired is/was ‘Sekergevrek’, which means something like “Sugar-flavored”. It’s a sweet quince favored for fresh eating. ‘Ekmek’ has proved hardy here. ‘Sekergevrek’ unfortunately had not. ‘Smyrna’ seems to do fine here too, though I don’t currently grow it.
I do have a couple of young trees of ‘kuganskaya’, which I believe originated in the Black Sea region. It’s said to be very sweet- good enough to eat of hand according to some. Apparently the fruit is massive as well.
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More likely it’s just an anglicized form of the same name. I don’t know much about Slavic languages, but as I understand it, krymskaya literally means “of (or from) Crimea”
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No, it is a tradename. Trademarked and all. In my opinion there’s no reason to use the tradename when the real name is perfectly good and no one is claiming to own rights to its use.
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Let me guess, One Green World?
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I think so.
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They sell lots of great stuff, but the seem to be constantly taking things others have bred and trademarking them, which I find dubious and less than upstanding.
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For those growing quince on the east coast. How bad is rust and fire blight? Are some better in that regard?
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I have Smyrna and Aromatnaya. Oddly enough, the Smyrna has been the more vigorous of the two. I hope to get my first fruit off it this year, but I am not sure as it is right at petal fall as of now. I think I planted them both 3 years ago. Aromatnaya is not blooming currently, partly because the sheep bent the cage around it and ate off the leaves a couple summers ago. If anyone here raises sheep and is considering Babydolls, don’t believe what you may have read. They may have been selected to be short to run in orchards, but they will willing eat tree leaves and bark. I have read a couple articles that claim otherwise, but I know better now from my and other’s experiences. Aromatnaya also will have some tip die-back winter damage here, whereas Smyrna never does. It just seems that Smyrna hardens off earlier, and drops it’s leaves, whereas Aromatnaya usually has its leaves get frozen on the tree and then hang through winter.
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We have no rust here to speak of, thankfully. I do see shepherd crook branches at times but it is almost always the wispy branches that grow in the summer after the initial spring flush. This twiggy stuff is also likely to die back, and it’s not very good bearing wood, so annually pruning it and the many water sprouts and suckers are the two main jobs besides harvesting.
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Kuganskaya and Crimea are great tasting, IMHO. We do get rust here in the PNWet. I apply compost tea and I prune and that takes care of it.
John S
PDX OR
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My Crimea finally looks like its making more than 2 or 3 fruit. Perhaps it benefits from a pollinizer. I grafted Pineapple to it and they both seem to have set pretty well. Could be weather or maturity though, I suppose. Also have a sad Smyrna branch on the tree along with 3 types of loquat and Taylor’s Gold pear.
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I think it might have more to do with maturity than cross pollination because it seems young quince will fail to set much fruit despite flowering well and having multiple varieties close together.