North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[<dwoodard@becon.org>]

Pete, European pears may differ in their behaviour.

The classic ripening technique for European fresh eating pears is: 50 
to 70 degrees F. (cooler is usually though not always better) in a 
closed container. Sometimes a preliminary period of cold storage is best 
(said to be 2 months for Anjou). My experience is that ripening Ontario 
grown Anjous taken from cold storage in January produces an absolutely 
delicious fruit. Note that some European pears apparently need months of 
root cellar type storage ("common storage") to ripen. In the old days 
apparently winter pears such as Josephine de Malines and Winter Nelis 
were kept in common storage and would ripen well into winter.

European cooking pears (e.g. Catillac) are said to require cooking for 
2 hours even after months of storage. Reputedly they are easy to store 
in good condition. I have no personal experience with them.

I don't know anything about Oriental pears and hybrids, except that I 
have been told that well grown Kieffers respond well to a few weeks 
common storage, and limited personal experience suggests that it is so.

I suggest that if possible you try different treatments on several 
different batches.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 15:08:15 -0500, Peter Chrisbacher 
<pxbacher@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello All -
>
> Last weekend I stumbled across what appears to me to be a very large 
> old
> wild pear tree here in Wilmington DE. The tree still has lots of 
> pears
> hanging on its branches, as well as loads of fruit still in good 
> shape (and
> rock hard) on the ground around it.
>
> Assuming this is actually a "wild" tree, these pears are quite large 
> - the
> one I'm looking at now is just slightly smaller than a bartlett. 
> Nearby the
> tree is an overgrown apple tree that appears quite a bit younger than 
> the
> pear tree.
>
> I am quite sure I can collect at least two and probably more 5-gallon 
> pails
> of fruit from around this tree.  This being the case, I have a few
> questions for the group:
>
> 1) Any thoughts on whether this is a seedling pear or may actually be 
> a
> cultivar?  I see no indication of grafting on the tree.
> 2) If possibly not a seedling, how might I go about typing it?
> 3) These pears are rock hard, despite storing 5 in a paper bag at 
> room temp
> for the past week. They're juicy enough, but are tart and mildly 
> tannic.
>  Do I have any hope of ripening them, or would I be better off 
> processing
> them in some way?
> 4) What might be the best way(s) to try ripening and/or processing 
> some of
> these?  I'm willing to experiment by trying different things this 
> year
> thinking ahead to next year's harvest
>
> Here's a pic of one of the pears:
>
> https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/SrbRngldHoADQFNNTHTVrtMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
>
> Thanks!
>
> Pete Chrisbacher
> Zone 6b/7a Southeast PA