Quince

Five years ago planted Quince Vranta. Last year it had a few small quince that never developed into eatable fruit. This year it was covered in blossoms but has no fruit. The tree is about 9 feet tall and looks healthy. Eventhough our soil in Derby is mainly clay I've seen other quince trees loaded down with fruit. Can you please tell me what the proglem could be.

Have a look at some of the apple threads around as I'm fairly sure you'll be suffering from the same thing - lack of pollinators in the air after blossom and the cold wet weather after an early warm spell. It has meant it's a bad year generally for fruit trees.

You haven't done anything wrong.

Thanks Leggi for the info. I have a couple apple trees which I have not looked at because they always bear loads of fruit. Funny enough I have not noticed as many apples on the ground as usual so you must be right in that this is a poor year for fruit trees. Will have look at the trees in the morning and let you know what I find.

Hello Leggi

Have had a look at my apple trees and found they have about half as many apples as usual. This isn't a bad thing because not many have dropped and hopefully the remaining apples will be bigger. It is a shame about the quince tree not having any fruit because I was looking forward to my wife's quence jam.

Last year was fantastic for most fruit. We had masses of blossom, a few fine days, and that must have done the trick. But, as has been said, a wonky Spring in 2012 has almost certainly ruined pollination time.  Actually, there was half the blossom this year, so that definitely counted. I can hardly find anything on my trees. Can any experts here say why we get heavy blossom Springs? Can it be the hard previous winter or  longer term influences? 

We have a Vranja quince tree about the same age that behaves in a similar way - it blossoms profusely, but only has a few fruit. By last year we had maybe a dozen decent quinces, which was great, but that was out of hundreds of blossoms. This year I am not so hopeful of getting any fruit.

I think, as Leggi says, it's probably due to a lack of pollinators at a critical time. I've also noticed that the fruits our quince tree had were towards the top of the tree, which also suggests it's to do with pollenators.

We love our quince tree anyway, as it's an elegant tree, its leaves open early in the year, it's pretty in blossom, and it's one of the last to drop its leaves.

I just noticed a couple of quinces on my bush today. However, I've never tried to use them as it's a decorative variety. Does anyone know if they are usable?

The decorative ones (Japanese Quince, withe the pretty red flowers) are quite different from the true quinces. The fruits tend to stay rock-hard, and although you can grate them and attempt to make quice jelly from them, I never had much success with this. The sort that grow on a tree look a bit like pears and are quite different.

Thanks for that, Green Magpie, it was as I suspected. Perhaps I should invest in a proper Quince tree as well.

Hello Green Magpie, it is interesting what you said about the fruit of your quince tree being mainly on the top branches, the few  fruit we had was also on the top branches. The problem we had was that the fruit were so heavy they broke some of the branches. Usually there is no need to prune quince trees however since our branches are long and thin do you think pruning the branches would improve the structure of the tree?

You can use the fruit of the Japanese Quince for cooking - I cut one into quarters (with a large sharp knife - they are very hard) and put them inside a pot-roasting pheasant with some apples around it and some cider.  They give the potroast a delicious tart flavour.

And if you don't have access to 'proper quinces' you can half a Japanese quince and put it in with some ordinary apples when making jelly, and this will make a wonderfully flavoured jelly to have with cold meats and cheeses etc.

However, they are no real replacement for 'real quinces' 

Dovefromabove wrote (see)

You can use the fruit of the Japanese Quince for cooking - I cut one into quarters (with a large sharp knife - they are very hard) and put them inside a pot-roasting pheasant with some apples around it and some cider.  They give the potroast a delicious tart flavour.

Sounds fab. thanks Dovefromabove.

Now to track down a pheasant.

Of course, and you probably know this, fresh pheasant are only obtainable between 1st October and 1st February - serendipitously coinciding with  autumn and winter when the Japanese quince has ripened 

You can make "quince" jelly and cheese from the Japanese flowering quince (Chaenomeles japonica). I have a slightly different variety (Chaenomeles cathayensis) which produces similar fruit to the Japanese variety but has a very different habit - 3 to 4 metre tall trunk which is extremely spiny. I have also made jelly and cheese from this variety.

No, Dove, I didn't know that as I've only ever had pheasant once, for Christmas Dinner.

Thanks, Steephill (great name!) I might give it a go.

I did not know you could use the fruit from the chaenomeles japonicaa, thank you for that information, will certainly give that a go.

Off now to pick the redcurrants before the rain batters them off before I get to them..

Ahmadmirza: I really don't know about pruning the branches. I think you'd ned to cut off quite a lot to make the branch stronger, and you might just cut off the bits that were supposed to flower, and leave the bits that weren't. This is just a guess, I don't know. I don't think this year's  crop is going to put much strain on the branches!

Bookertoo wrote (see)

I did not know you could use the fruit from the chaenomeles japonicaa, thank you for that information, will certainly give that a go.

Bookertoo, don't forget you'll need a runcible spoon for your slices of quince. Now where did I leave mine...

;- )

ahaa, now I knew there was something missing from the cooking cutlery drawer - it's maybe with all the other items that seem to live in the garage - while the car sits on the drive! Now, where did I leave that runcible spoon .............

Bookertoo wrote (see)

 it's maybe with all the other items that seem to live in the garage - while the car sits on the drive!