Relatively tolerant of fire blight. Asian pears make up a unique group, really quite unlike either apples or European pears. Asian pears are typically very crisp, very juicy, very sweet, and very low acid. Hosui fruits have very high sugar, usually over 14 Brix, and often will weigh more than 10 ounces. Niitaka fruits are also large and sweet, with a basically bland flavor.
Flavor is perhaps the richest of the nashi.
Twentieth Century is the old standby, the foundation variety. We ve no experience yet with Kikusui . Ya Li is pear-shaped, large, somewhat coarse in appearance. Ya Li has a very low chilling requirement and blooms earlier than the Japanese varieties. On OHxF 97, a vigorous P. communis selection, Asian pears are of almost standard vigor, making trees similar to apples grafted on Malling-Merton 111.