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.

Yes, it doesn't look right- but I suspect the tree has decided to discard that branch as not being high enough on the branch hierarchy. I don't know if that makes sense, but I see lower branches on my plum similarly "failing to thrive", and I like to imagine that in this case the tree has assessed the combination of need, light and nutrition and is allocating resources to the front runners. Please don't ask me how the tree does that or why I believe it might be true. I have no idea. Just thoughts and all FWIW! :-)M

I missed this thread and probably could have been some use as I grow Asians in the humid northeast- which is more like your climate than the locations of most of the posters here. To me Korean Giant aka Olympic is best of Asians because it is the biggest and sweetest variety I've grown. University of Kentucky concurs in their research. I've never seen an Asian here bothered by fireblight, maybe because they start growth before warm weather. The consensus in this part of the country is that the Asians are easier to grow than Euros because they are not susceptible to scab or psyla, which can be devastating and more difficult to treat than most problems on any fruit here. I used to really like the taste of my KG's but after I had unlimited access to them I began to lose interest. I now far prefer my different Europeans because they are more interesting to me. This is all so subjective and people who sample my KG's usually just go gahgah Fireblight is something that can be spread from more susceptable trees to less. I have not seen research on this but my observations are conclusive as far as I'm concerned although I've only actually seen examples on 3 sites. On one site the quince there had fireblight for 2 or 3 seasons before it spread to europears. It went from susceptable pears (bosc most affected) the next season to most of the apples with Honeycrisp most affected. The strikes never went deep except in the Bosc and Quince and last year wasn't too bad. I've yet to loose a tree to fireblight after 2 decades of caring for thousands of trees in the northeast. This is probably because I don't manage any full dwarf apple trees which are more susceptable. In your climate you may get Jap type plums without much difficulty, or not. Scott has troubles in Maryland but I get unsprayed fruit often in S. NY and vacinity. Illinois Everbearing is usually touted as the best Mulberry for my climate. I have also tried Oscars, which I didn't care for. Silk Hope couldn't take our winter. Burnt Ridge has some IE available.

Here in Zone 5-6 (Western Montana) I ripened Anjou, Gold Spice, and one I'm not sure of because I lost the graft label, probably Flemish Beauty. Had Ure coming when I picked it early. Other grafts on my tree that have yet to produce are Clapp's Favorite, Dana's Hovey, White Doyenne, Seckel, and Winter Nellis, as well as local favorite "Frost" and a family heirloom from Lou Pezzuti, which we named for his father Joe. Joe originally saved scions from a tree that was getting bulldozed (I suspect a seedling). A neighbor has some beautiful Boscs. The original tree is Gold Spice on FHx333, I believe, and has been a reliable producer every year, including the year it was planted; one year I had no pollination, but that is another story. The tree is kept at 12 feet tall and about 8 feet diameter by pruning. Some grafts do appear more vigorous than others and I prune them more aggressively. And I grafted Flemish Beauty to a Bartlett on unknown rootstock and it overgrew badly- it's been a wrestling match ever since to keep it hewn to a manageable level and I haven't full succeeded in controlling it (not my tree, so I can't obsess over it as much as I might.) Just FWIW, M