Ben that's so great, that your pears are doing well. It seems that many Asian veggies and fruit types seem to do well in N FL. Do the pears ripen on the tree or do they need to ripen on the counter?

My mom has a pear tree in AZ but hers have to ripen off the tree. I dont know what kind it is.

~Sjn

Ben, I have a grafted 4 in 1. Got it last year. It is about 4 ft and it has fruit on 3 of the grafts. This year.

I plucked a ripe pear (20thcentury) from a tree in a nursery in Branford and it was ready to eat. My understanding is that they store well in coolers and last for months.

But they should be allowed to ripen on tree.

So happy you are finally getting pears. They're a little cheaper here, but by the time they get to this coast, they aren't very good.

Glenn, that's awesome! I wouldn't have thought Asian pears would bear in your zone.

Ben, good looking trees!

Glenn, I am happy for you! your asian pear tree is doing better than mine, mine shows no sign of life yet.

In the meantime the best asian pears to buy is at the gigantic asian store in Orlando area, they bring the best imports of different kinds from the far orient and at a good prices.

I always get at least 10 different kinds to try them out and I am due to go and get things at the store, I will be shopping for the fruit soon and some other things that I can only find it there.

There is a sign at the market, no pictures.:)

In South Alabama I planted Shinseiki, I also planted about a dozen Keiffer. All are doing very well. We protected them with a 5' tube to give them a good start. Now the deer can graze the leaves at the top but the trunk is protected. I'll leave the sleeve on another year. Once it's thick enough to start touching the sides of the tube I'll remove them.

The Shinsieki had 6 pears last year that made it past the wildlife, but it also had a grand start. It was a bear root we purchased that was already about 3 years old. This year looks very promising. I plan to plant one at the new house. I love the fruit and it seems to do extremely well with lower chill hours. They only need 250 and some years we won't get that here. They are self fruitful so they top out my list. The other asian pears need more chill hours and not all are self fruitful. Pineapple pear is the other variety that I would consider, but it's a completely different profile.

Good luck! Keep us posted!

Barb

Silvia I am really surprised that your Asian pear is not out of dormancy yet. What four grafts did you get? Just wondering if they are the same as mine..

Ben, your trees are so big and look great. Wish mine were that big. My other pears just creep along.

Glenn, I went to see the varieties and I had only two that I can read, one is Shinseike and the other Kosui. There are 3 more varieties that the tags got cut with the wind.

The branches are green but no leaves yet...

Glenn, if your tree was mine.... I would clear the grass up to 3ft away from tree, then mulch it heavy . At least 3-4 inches of mulch and keep mulch just barely away from trunk, spread at least a cup of slow release fertilizer through out the mulch, then water slowly and deeply every other day, or less depending weather .... More or less watering would depend on how fast water drains in your soil. As your tree grows and expands the root ball, watering schedule can be stretched out more. This treatment would push growth.... and as much as you want that single fruit to ripen, I feel the tree can better use it's energy in pushing growth. The fruit is draining the tree of resources at such a young age. I would just be happy that the tree has successfully pollinated and enjoy it watching flush out new growth.

Silvia, some of my pears are still just starting to leaf out as well, some varieties need more chilling hours and start later They will push when they have either accumulated the needed hours or the high temps just force the growth.

I have a bartlett pear tree and no realistic expectation of eating pears off that tree. It is growing fine but nary a bloom. I consider it an insurance policy for when we have such a terribly cold winter in the Gainesville area that the normal trees for this area will suffer due to extended cold, then the bartlett may put out some fruit. It will be interesting to see.

Thank you Ben for sharing your experience with the pears and I really hope mine will become alive some day....sometimes I am the impatient gardener.:)

The weather has been completely out of balance sometimes hot when is not supposed to and sometimes cold but I don't remember a freeze this year, maybe the asian pears did not get the chill hours needed.

At least other fruit trees are doing great this year, looking forward for the coming up figs, mangoes and avocados in my garden.

Barb, I grew up on Keiffer pears, and although they will grow up here, I haven't seen many. In SC, it seemed everyone had one in their yard.

Silvia, the four types that are grafted on mine are chojoro, hosui, shinseiki, and 20th century. It is the chojoro that was the late bloomer but its bloom is at the same time as my hard pear so that works out.

Ben good advice thanks. Will not be doing the mulch for about a month have other things to take care of but it will be done.

DG, Kieffer pears (at least the one in my orchard) seem to do very well in this area. My tree had a couple of branches so heavy with fruit that they snapped down. will have to revisit the concept of thinning fruit on trees to avoid damage this year and it has (again) a lot of fruit on it, they are currently the size of walnuts. Will post a pic tomorrow.

BTW am finding that having a cross pollinator for pears is not as easy as following directions on label. Label usually says to get a different variety. The key component is finding a CORRECTLY LABELED TREE and verifying that it blooms same time in your area as the other variety and planting it within range. To avoid this problem I planted all my pollen needy trees in clusters where all trees are in rows 15ft apart and clustered no more that 30 ft from any tree of the same group.

Ben, I remember my father bracing the limbs on our Keiffer pear when I was young.

What I walked out to find on my hard pear today

Glenn, "hard pear" sounds like a Keiffer. They are hard until they start getting ripe, then they are really sweet and crunchy. I love them! They make great pear preserves & spiced pears.

Here s my Kieffer pear tree and a couple of clusters of pears from it.

I will likely get another one or two more trees of same variety. They do well and produce aplenty. My secondary reason would be that the tree is a good pollinator and the one I have is on one cluster of pears, the second cluster is a couple of hundred feet away and could use a strong pollinator.

Ben, I am so jealous.

DG, the hard pear is a clone of the one my great uncle grew in Brooksville. It took me many times to get it to grow from cutting. I have no id for it but he called it a hard pear are sometimes a canning pear and his wife called it a cooking pear and that it was grown from her dads tree in southern Alabama. It was a good production tree and she would can slices and make pear butter every year. My mom did the same for a few years until the tree suddenly died.

Ben they all look so good.. You are right about labels and the bloom. I have a Florida home and had a pineapple pear they are supposed to bloom together but never did.

Wow, you have done great with fruit trees. I also am looking for Asian fruit trees for months. The golden round pear on the right is the only kind of pear I will ever want to eat. It looks like Korean pear.

Kay, if you look at the price label over the fruit, it indicates the variety name is Hosui. Not sure where you can find it in zone 5, maybe on line.

Wow nice work guys. I have 1 Asian pear tree. Bought at Lowes. 6 years old in my yard. Bloomed once but no fruit. Want to try to graft other varieties onto the tree to make like a cocktail tree.

Looking for scion wood please. Thx

Up date photo

it seems like it is going to be a good producer. Next year I will probably remove the fruit in favor of growth but this year I left it for proof that it will produce this far south. I am very happy with this tree.

Good growing Glen, I already picked and ate a couple of the kikosui pears posted on earlier pictures. Still some on the tree, will get another pic and post it later today, it was very sweet, juicy and crisp.

Ben it sounds like you are having a good season.

Tried my first shinseiki pear from my tree today. YUM! I got to say that, that tree is a keeper.

Glad you got to try the fruit. It is basically unknown to most people. Once you taste it, you will remember it.

Florida's forgotten fruit - the pear !

Ben thanks, I have had them from the grocery store but like most things they are better home grown.

Jofus, right your are. When I was a kid you could still find sand pairs in the older neighborhoods of Orlando. I believe those days are over. I have not seen one in years there might be a few left maybe.

I love Asian pears. I planted Shinseiki a few years ago but no fruit yet.