Our Variety Assessment

Its strengths, growing requirements and the conditions in which it performs best.

I mainly value Niitaka for its spectacular fruit size, heavy cropping and storage ability. The fruit stays crisp and juicy for a long time after harvest. A compatible pollinizer is essential because Niitaka is male-sterile and provides virtually no useful pollen itself.

Niitaka

Price range: 26,50 € through 59,75 €

A late Japanese Asian pear producing exceptionally large brown-russeted fruit with crisp, juicy, sweet flesh. Highly productive and especially valued for fruit size and long storage life.

Choose your tree form

1 year old grafted tree – approx. 1–2 m

Half-standard – 1 to 1.5 m stem

Standard tree – 1.8 m stem and over

Pear rootstock options

Calleryana - approx. 5m mature height

Farold 87 - approx 4.5m mature height

Kirchensaller – approx. 6 m mature height

Pyrodwarf – approx. 4 m mature height

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Tree size guide

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SKU: 30364 Category: Asian pear trees

Description

Asian Pear ‘Niitaka’ is an important Japanese cultivar of Pyrus pyrifolia, released in 1927. Modern genetic work has confirmed its parentage as ‘Amanogawa’ × ‘Chojuro’, correcting the older attribution to ‘Imamuraaki’.

The fruit is very large, commonly around 700 g in Japanese descriptions, round and heavily russeted. The flesh is firm, crisp and juicy with a sweet, mild flavour. Its impressive size, high productivity and good keeping quality have made ‘Niitaka’ an important late-season Asian pear in Japan and Korea.

Ripening is late, generally from late September into early October in Japan, although climate can shift harvest considerably. Under good refrigerated conditions the fruit can keep for several months.

‘Niitaka’ is self-incompatible and also male-sterile, producing little or no useful pollen. It therefore requires a compatible pollinizer nearby and should not itself be relied upon to pollinate another pear. ‘Shinko’ and ‘Ya Li’ are among the cultivars recommended as pollen sources. The cultivar is resistant to Japanese pear black spot, while fire blight remains a concern in regions where that disease occurs.