Hello Everyone.

I almost purchased an Asian pear tree yesterday, but i was concerned if it would ever fruit in the UK.
As with most gardens, the space for 'trial' items is at a premium and i need everything to almost guarantee to fruit, but i'd really like to 'give it a bash' and see how it develops.

Does anyone have such a tree?, or are able to offer any advice, it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks if you are able to help.
Tom.

I have one in Buckinghamshire and it fruits. In 2003 it fruited in August but September is more normal. It fruited from an early age, quicker than normal pears. The fruit are delicious, but much smaller than the ones you get in the shops. I think I needs a lot more water than we have been able to give it with hosepipe bans, our soil is very dry. Even so, we now get lots of fruit set and we have to thin them out drastically. The branches were sufficiently loaded last year that they started breaking. They get very sweet if there is hot weather in August, in 2003 I had to put them in plastic bags to protect them from wasps. The flowers can be burned off by a nasty frost just before flowering, late March early April, so if you are in an area prone to that you may be less lucky than me.

If you have Shinseiki (like me), then it is generally reckoned to be partially self-fertile (Keepers says it is self-sterile - though I got some fruit off my Shinseiki before I got my pollination partner into flower). If you don't have Shinseiki, say Shinsui or Twentieth Century, then you definitely need a pollination partner, and even with Shinseiki it would be rather better if you had one. A normal pear is an adequate pollination partner, but it needs to be a relatively early flowering pear. In the classification on http://www.keepers-nursery.co.uk/, the Asian pears are group C, so you want B, C or D to cross pollinate. Among popular pear varieties, Conference is group C, so that would be spot on. If a neighbour or near neighbour has a Conference Pear, that would do you. I have a group D (Abbe Fetel) which I have to pollinate both that and a Group E pear (Concorde), and that works. The Concorde generally doesn't flower until the Shinseiki is finished.

Hi Echinosum.

i really welcomed your reply...many thanks for going into depth for me....i'm really keen to try but i'd like to ask you a couple of questions if it's ok?...firstly may i ask where you purchased your Shinseiki?..was it mail order?.....(i tried my local arboritum and they have one but don't know the variety so i'm not going to risk not knowing)...the other is do you know how old it was when you purchased it?...and did it fruit the same year as you planted it.....

really keen.
Tom.