I've never tasted Shipova fruit. I grafted it to my aronia 2 or 3 years ago, and now I have a few fruit on one of them. There aren't enough to start sampling them regularly. When should I pick and eat them? Any clues on when they are mature? I think I can pick them ripe like Asian pears rather than European, but not sure where I got that notion.
I think Raintree says the ripen in August, but they must have copied the text from elsewhere.
One of my three fruits was soft and translucent on one side, like maybe bruised. I picked it. Both the translucent, as well as the opaque portions are a bit mealy textured, a bit like an oddly stored and softened European pear. No grit. Also, no flavor. Very disappointing.
The other two are still firm and opaque. The deer are getting into the enclosure, but they seem to prefer aronia leaves to the pears and shipova, at least so far.
Jafar,
You are lucky to get fruit, at least. When I was still living in southern California 20+ years ago I had ordered a 'Shipova". When my wife made it clear that we were moving "north", it was one of many plants that I dug up, potted, and sent up here to Washington. After my wife and I had settled in to our new place, it was the first fruiting tree that we planted. I believe that we even had "a toast" over it. It persisted and grew for several more years and then, one year it finally bloomed. Oh, boy, it sure bloomed heavily! ...and then... it died. By then it was probably at least 8-10 years old. Talk about an anticlimax!
You, at least have SEEN the fruit. I don't know what it's supposed to taste like, but -- other than an intergeneric curiosity -- I was of the impression that its fruit would be tasty enough to consume and even, perhaps, leave one wanting more.
My references suggest that the "x Sorbopyrus" is a cross between Pyrus communis (European pear) and Sorbus aria (the White Beam-tree). The fruit of the latter is described as "fruit subglobose, 1.2 cm thick, orange-red or scarlet, with mealy flesh".
Out of curiosity, have any of your Shipova fruits developed any kind of -- for lack of a better term or phrase -- "ripeness color"? Frankly, I'm just jealous that you got fruit on your plant.
Reinettes
My Shipova is on aronia, which makes it much more precocious. The color don't shout ripe to me, but I think they are looking less green.
A Facebook friend has her first crop on an 8 year tree, and quite the crop. She says they are good, and that they lose their flavor when overripe, so I may have waited too long. Only having 3 fruit, I didn't want to try too early. I'll try one of the 2 remaining today.
Another friend said that they have a narrow window of time when they are at their best. I haven't invested too much in mine, just got some scions, and slapped them on some aronia seedlings while I was also adding a few pears. I still have Honeysweet, Ayers and maybe Conference. One of those has small fruits too, probably Honeysweet.
Rooney, I'm not sure what you're asking about.
I have a 4 in 1 pluot, and it made a decent number of Splash pluots, which are my favorite of the ones I've tried. They seem to be more hit with insects than some of the others.
The nearby Nadia Cherry/Plum cross gets almost none, and I believe its bloom and ripening overlap.
The 'splash' is the hybrid I meant. About the hybrid 'nadia', mine was low producing as well this year. It's flowers come very early when rainy so I venture to guess that any hopes on production will come from apomixis.
I had the most amazing experience trying some dried 'satsuma' plums from George Barton. Incredible!!
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
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