Hi kakilover, Welcome to Garden Web and The Plant Exchange. Please see addressing newbie and newer member issues for instructions on getting your Member Page email link set up so you can easily be reached. You might want to also set up your location (also explained in that thread) so it will be shown on your Member Page as well as automatically being shown whenever you make a post. hth. Sue...aka chemocurl

If you are going to get the Shinko, a good pollinator is Shinseiki. They bloom at the same time in my yard and my son-in-law's yard (both Houston). The shinko is good as long as you don't get too much rain near ripening. They will be bland with the rain.....dry periods good. Shinseiki is better in my opinion, but it needs a pollinator. Shinko fruits without a pollinator, but much more fruit with a pollinator. Shinko does get blight....I lost mine after about 8 years due to blight....it was bad that year. I replaced my shinko with Tennosui. First time fruiting last year. Was not impressed with fruit. Mine were not crisp and low flavor. Tree may still be too young. I prefer crisp pears and my favorite is Southern Queen, sweet, flavorful and crisp. I may replace my Tennosui with it's sister, Southern King if the fruit don't improve. The Akers (acres) Home pear is very good. It is excellent flavor and sweetness after a week or two off the tree. No problems with blight, but it does have rot problems. You may have to spray.....don't know about San Antone. I think the rot problem may be why it is not pushed much anymore here, but it is excellent. I pulled mine due to rot and it is a melting pear and I like crisp.

Rina, The only work I did on this tree was thinning fruits. Too many fruits will snap the branches. I try to graft a new variety anywhere to balance the tree structure. Pear is one of the easiest tree to graft. I choose my varieties from the USDA Corvallis. Scion woods are free and just have to pay for Fedex shipping. They asked you for a reason to obtain the scion woods and I usally told them for a cold hardy trail in Zone 5. In about 5 years then I email them the results. Tony Here is a link that might be useful: USDA / Corvallis

Of the four Asians that I planted, back in '96: Chojuro is #1 - big, pretty fruits with great flavor, doesn't tend to overbear as much as the others. Shinko - close second. Heavy bearer, and needs thinning, but even without thinning the fruits size up pretty good(and will break branches), good flavor, but not as good as Chojuro. Niitaka - really overbears, and fruits will not size if you don't thin. Usually lacking in flavor - plenty of juice, but just sweet, with little character; they were good last year, but this year just so-so. Korean Giant/Don Bae - a real 'dog' for me. Never set more than 2 or 3 fruits in a year - they got huge, but were big watery, tasteless things. Kinda like eating a wet raw potato. I didn't shed a tear when fireblight killed it to the ground.