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Questions on Quince: Quizzical Quandary of Fruit Proportions

January 21, 2025

A few years ago one of my neighbors near my farm was arriving home late and decided to turn on the news before bed. Lo and behold, here was her mailbox featured front and center on News 8.  Here was a newscaster talking about an event in front of her home just prior to her arrival. It was apparent something went down big time. She quickly looked outside. There was nothing there. Her yard was empty. She went to sleep to the sound of crickets. This series of events tells the story of my introductions of edible food plants in the gardening industry. At first it seems like a huge deal, but either it is only in my mind or I am completely clueless and unaware of what just happened in front of me. The events of discovery, growing and release by informing the public is very nice but then it is gone and you hear the crickets sing.  The Cathay quince was like this. It remains a cricket song today.

When I first received seed of Cathay quince, I knew nothing.  I read as much as I could find prior to the internet. There wasn’t much. My main reference book was  Gerd Krussmann , Manual of Cultivated Broad-Leaved Trees & Shrubs. Here the description noted, “hard and bitter (nevertheless economically useful!” . Where do I sign up?   I had heard this was quite a quince one worthy of growing.  However, at that time only California had hybrid selections of it. It was a quasi-known shrub in the high and dry climates but not so much in cloudy old Michigan.  I began my quest from seed and soon I met a seed collector from the U.K. that also loved the plant and had fruit and seeds. They too had cloudy cool weather. The plants grew very well and I was able to establish them at my farm easily near a hilltop where I have additional selections of autumnberry growing near the hicans and red mulberries.  Over the course of twenty five years I had kind of forgotten them. But a closer look during pruning revealed some amazing attributes.

The Cathay quince is not the Smyrna quince. Here you have an incredibly hard quince used for making candy and jelly. The species itself produces huge thorns and spurs on thorns which add to its yields like no tommorrow.  To this day, I am not seeing bumper crops like I would expect. My guess is the plants need a large woody reserve of trunks, stems  and foliage to build up the carbohydrate reserves for that to happen. In the meantime, the plant prepares for the main events in its life by every now and then filling a few dozen fruit at a time. It is kind of a wait and build it scenario first to heavy fruit production. I am wondering too about its pollination despite it being self fertile.

The Cathay quince is not a eureka moment for people who buy or use the edible quinces today but it is widely cultivated in China. It has a nice floral fragrance and is moderately productive at my farm.  I was successful in creating a full zone 5 hardiness with this species by selecting plants with no winter damage. Before my trial, it was listed as a zone 7 plant. Initially I did loose a few at the minus 20F mark. Now the new seedlings growing are completely hardy to minus 25F.

I still hear crickets when I mention Cathay quince. Seed is available. You can grow it. You can improve it. You can do wonderfult things with it. It’s a huge event waiting for your participation. The crickets may chime in to lull you to sleep. That’s okay.  More is yet to come from the Cathay quince.

 

 

 

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