North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

Naomi,
Fireblight is a major problem in the eastern US, including the
Appalachian Highlands where I live.  Chaenomeles, the "bush
ornamental" quince you describe below, survives and fruits very well
here, despite heavy fireblight pressure.  I manage fireblight in
apples and pears in my orchard, but have only cut out one blighted
quince limb in about 15 years.  I've posted on this topic before if
you care to search this list archives.

The ornamental (Japanese) quince I prefer is 'Toyo Nishiki', which I
bought from Hidden Springs Nursery, a mail order nursery based in
Cookeville, TN,  The owners/operators are Nafex members.  'Toyo
Nishiki' has flowers of several colors, and has larger fruit than most
all 'ornamental' quince in my area.  We harvest the fruit bushels at a
time, both from our bushes and those around town.  Then we steam
extract the juice and use it for baking.  We also run steamed fruit
through a food mill and use the sauce, cooking it down and making a
paste like guava paste.

We sell at the Abingdon Farmers Market.  Earlier today there was a
discussion at our booth with local chefs and restaurant patrons on how
our quince juice and fruit is being used.  We also sell the quince
paste, and customers were talking about that as well.

In summary, the Chaenomeles or 'ornamental' quinces are a fruit fruit
we grow, and a number of our customers and several chefs enjoy them as
well.

Richard Moyer
SW VA
Where I have an order for spice(bush)berries, Lindera benzoin.

From: "Naomi Counides" <naomi@oznayim.us>
> To: "'North American Fruit Explorers'" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Quince varieites - fireblight/leaf blight
>       resistance?
> Message-ID: <1EB0EC3C76FD45A48B41711C04B8B9E8@NCounides>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I am in Idaho.. kinda dry here too and I lost a VanDamen to fireblight.  I
> also would like to replace it with something more resistant.  I would
> consider a bush ornamental type if it had culinary virtue.  I am not in love
> with the Russian edible fresh and raw quinces.  I am looking for an old
> fashioned hard as rock..pucker your mouth if you try to bite into it type.
>
> Naomi