Pear trees not fruiting

lottpaul

I've been helping my brother in law renovate his garden over the past few months and noticed that only one of his 7 pear trees in his large orchard was bearing any fruit - a Doyenne du Comice -and it was bending to the ground with large, well formed and blemish free fruit. He says its as good as this most years but his others rarely have more than a handful of fruit and they are often blackened and mis-shapen. The trees themselves are between 5 and 20 years old and seemed very healthy, growing well (maybe too well?) and evenly, well staked and weed/grass free at the base. They're a mix of concord, conference and other doyennes.
His apple trees seemed fine with a good crop of cookers and dessert fruit.
The orchard is in north Wexford, about 4km from the sea and fairly well sheltered.
Am a bit puzzled and just wondered if anyone has any opinions or suggestions as to why the other pears are so poor?
TIA

bazbrady

i have a few conference trees that have been poor the last few years ,but thats due i think to me being inland and lots of late frost,which killed off the flowers,seems to be this mild weather in march and then we can get a late april frost which i think is doing the damage,my fathers tree got canker but you would see this,so the fact he is coastal he shouldnt be affected too much by the late frost,if the trees are very closely packed together i have heard this can be an issue with air flow and can increase disease chances but not sure how,maybe a thinning out might help.its funny that one variety is cropping heavy .

lazybones32

Are they not fruiting at all, or just small fruits?
If they've never fruited, fire up the chainsaw... or root-prune, feed with manure, prune the branches and wait for another two years. Cut out some of the spurs too to promote the remainders to produce.
Do those varieties need a pollinator? Not too hot on pears tbh but am getting better with apples - the poor man's pear.

flutered

the old timers of my youth used to say you have to wait for pears, also in my personal experience they need protection both from the frost and the north

lottpaul

lazybones32 wrote: »

Are they not fruiting at all, or just small fruits?

The conferences have occasional small fruit but nothing to make much of. The puzzle is that he has 3 very healthy Doyennes, 2 of which have never fruited at all. The trees are fairly well sheltered and dont get too much frost I think. I think maybe a radical pruning and feeding might be in order. He has a big apricot tree which produces beautiful pink flowers in spring - and even had a few fruit this year - so I reckon its a fairly good spot.

The chain saw idea would appeal to me too

lazybones32

It might be a case of removing competition from other small pears on the spur: if 5 pears are developing on a spur, pinch out 2 or 3 to allow the remainders to develop more fully.
Correct limb/root pruning and a good feeding won't hurt either.

Supercell

My conference pear trees didnt have any fruit this year, must have been a bad spell of weather when they were flowering, apples and damsons were great though.

Day Lewin

Ask a couple of questions::

Do the trees flower well? If there's no flowers, there can be no fruit.

If they DO flower, do they get pollinated? Are there other fruit trees nearby to supply pollen? (Appears Yes in this case)

Pears are pollinated by bees but some are self-fertile: however, low temperatures can damage the flowers even if they appear to be normal.
Are there any bees in the area/ have local bee populations suffered from pests lately?
And sometimes they DO get pollinated and start to form fruit but it all drops off - especially in a dry June.

So there are lots of questions to ask before giving up hope of good fruit for next year!

macraignil

The place your trees are growing has a big impact on how they fruit. I planted one conference pear in my parent's back garden and it is now regularly yielding about 50 pears. There is also a beurre hardy variety there that has not grown as well but I think it helps pollinate the bigger tree. I planted another conference pear near where I live and even though it is producing some fruit it is only a fraction of what the tree in my parent's back garden produces. The poorer yield I think is linked to the nearby pear tree being more exposed to strong winds or maybe even frost. I have read that cold air can build up in pockets in the lower parts of a garden as the cold air has nowhere to escape to. Maybe your poor yielding trees are in a frost pocket that the other pear tree avoids.

Good pruning preserving the potential fruiting spurs should help get a better crop. I am not sure that feeding too much is a great idea as I think I read somewhere that trees producing too much leafy growth do not yield as much fruit. I think some manure would be fine but a high nitrogen feed could be counterproductive for fruit yield.