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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I’ve noticed that too. It tends to take 5 or more years before you get much fruit
It’s not that young, but it is small.
Further south in Maryland, fireblight is very bad on quince, as is quince rust. I pulled all my quince maybe ten years ago due to these two diseases being out of control.
I have some newer fireblight-resistant quince seedlings that I spray for rust and they are working well. This year was a horrible fireblight year on my apples and pears and my quince also got some but they were more or less in the middle of the pack on how many strikes they got. With my previous quince they would be completely blighted. If you want scions of my seedlings just PM me in the winter… I named them Dunlop and Wilson because the fruits look like tennis balls.
love the names. whats their provenance?
if you come up with a 3rd, perhaps you can call it Spalding
I had four but two died so no Spalding sigh. They were seedings from the USDA program, crosses made in Bulgaria and seed sent to the US. There are several other ones available in the USDA-ARS germplasm repository, I might try them out some time. The ones I got are extras they were going to throw out. So far only Dunlop fruited, it was about like any other quince I grew in terms of size and taste so I am keeping it.
Those are some really healthy looking leaves. Do deer browse?
I have not seen much deer browse on the quince. I think it is because they are planted close to where our two guard/sheep dogs are stationed. The deer browse hardest on the first two orchard rows right next to the woods, where the can sneak in and out quickly.
Has anyone been able to grow “Valdivia Yellow” quince (which is different than his ‘Karp’s Sweet Quince’)? I may be interested in cuttings again.
Does it truly have that super yellow interior? Which area are you growing it?
I haven’t seen it offered anywhere other than the USDA and from Valdivia himself (my trees unfortunately died too early, as I didn’t have the seedlings in a great spot).
@scottfsmith Do you know anyone who carries the “FB” resistant quince varieties (scions)? Or better, what are their names? Saw that Madcat had one variety.
Is there a FB resistant rootstock for them? Maybe a different species?
Yes they have Hemus. I have it grafted so will see how it does compared to my seedlings.
My Dunlop got pretty bad blight this year unfortunately. It was generally a very bad year and it has been good other years so I hope it’s an outlier.
Birds like quince? Darn. I assumed such a hard fruit would not interest birds.
I have a lot of bird and squirrel pressure here in Portland (Oregon).
The Portland crows do not like quince, as in eat them, but they do make large peck marks on upper, exposed fruit in their search for moisture at the end of a hot summer. Portland crows are currently attacking persimmon trees when leaf drop exposes all fruit.
I highly recommend Crimea or Kuganskaya for Portland. I know someone who has scions. The trees grow from scions if you don’t want to graft them.
John S
PDX OR