I buy lots of Asian pears from the Korean and Japanese stores near me, I don't remember having seen tiny ones of the many types they sell.

I have never seen sticky ones either.

I suspect you are having infestation of psylla insects, those tiny flies you see.

Honeydew, produced by psylla nymphs as they feed on the pears makes everything sticky.

Welcome to the Cooking Forum.

dcarch

Welcome to the forum! I know nothing about Asian pears - but someone here will I am sure. Perhaps Lars will know.

Do let us know what you do with all of those pears.

Teresa

My asian pears are not sticky. I have three varieties. All much smaller than the ones found in markets. Same crispy flavor. In the past we have just eaten fresh and give away much of the bounty. Storage life is just a couple months and did not freeze well. I may try dehydrating this year.

I suspect insects as dcarch mentioned. Maybe try posting on the garden fruit tree forum.
Next year you could spray organically well before harvest time with Neem oil. But i would check with the experts first and try to determine what insect might be causing this.

Thanks so much for the replies!

I ended up filling up my sink with cold water and two cups of vinegar then dumping the fruit in. Then I put two cups of cold water and two cups of vinegar in another container and used a washcloth to wipe down each of the apple pears in the water/vinegar mix. Then I put them in container with cold water to give them a final rinse. It seems to have helped get rid of the stickiness. Definitely labor intensive.

I am going to borrow a dehydrator and try making dried apple pears. Will report back how that goes!

I did post in the gardening section and got some advice on how to possibly get bigger fruit.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg0821544030072.html

I tried Asian Pears for the first time this past Christmas. They are delicious. They are crispy like an apple but taste like a pear. Yummy. The ones I see in the store are about the size of a softball and rather expensive.

One of the comments on the gardening section thinks the problem may be caused by aphids.

The fact that you see tiny flies around indicates to me more likely it is infestation of psylla, as I have said above.

You should make sure what it is, because psylla, which has done lots of damage to pears, requires a specific method to control.

It is easy to tell which is which by viewing the insects with a magnifying glass, them identify by Google Image.

dcarch

dedtired - so glad you like them! they are my favorite fruit! and yes they are expensive so i feel very lucky that we have a tree in our yard.

dcarch - i am going to try and take a picture of the insects so that i can figure out what is actually causing the stickiness. thanks so much for your help!!

Just saw your pic on the other forum. 2" is very small. You need to cull them next year. Remove some of the fruit when small. You will get much bigger fruit. Mine are about the size of apples. (i should actually thin mine a bit more but it is a pain). My older tree is is about 15yrs now and too large to reach all of it without a ladder.

I have an Asian Pear tree that is bearing fruit for the second year and the fruit is much smaller than I anticipated. The flavor is delicious! I did not notice any stickiness on any of the ones I picked. These can be peeled and pickled the same as spiced pears if you like that sort of thing, or if you like preserves, slice them and cook as you would pears. I'll remove some of the fruit next year in hopes of having larger pears. Good luck with the "sticky problem"!