How much should I prune this pear tree?

[Taiji]

I inherited this pear tree with a new property recently. When I look at the tree and visually divide it into a top half and lower half, I see lots of neglected watersprouts gone wild on the top half while the lower half seems to have a pretty desirable shape.

My question is when winter dormancy comes, could I prune off all those watersprouts without hurting the tree, or would that be too much all at once? Doing that might take away close to half of the tree. Or, any other suggestions?

[JONA]

Hi Taiji
Your pear has a super base system so it would do no harm to remove much of the higher growth.
To prevent a massive burst of growth I would suggest that you remove the strongest branches first and leave plenty of very weak shoots to take the steam out of the trees effort to grow on.
Next year you can repeat the process so that the tree is encouraged to put its efforts into the lower structures.
You can then keep the upper part of the tree as a sort of growth controlling tap. When you want more growth you leave stronger wood.....when you need to slow the tree down you leave weaker wood.
It's the method growers use in spindle and centre leader trees.

[Taiji]

pears.JPG (56.89 KiB) Viewed 2371 times

Thanks so much. I was hoping you would respond to my question.

One more question. I don't know what kind of tree this is, but I'm assuming it's probably Bartlett. The pears look like that. It only set about 10 or 12 fruits, and I thought they were going to be great, but even though they are large, they are hard as rocks and I don't believe they have any intention of becoming softer! I think a single pear tree doesn't have much chance of setting any good fruit, no? I don't know of any others in the area. Do you think I should get another Bartlett for pollination?

[JONA]

If you've got fruit on the tree then there is pollination around. It's more likely that there are only a few fruits because the tree is growing too thick at the moment. A good winter prune should sort that out.
Bartlett pears...or as we call them over here Williams......are a pear that normally is picked when it starts to go slightly yellow as it goes 'sleepy' very quickly once it's fully ripe.
If your pears remain very hard for a long time then I would suspect they are not Barletts.
Be patient and wait and see.

[Taiji]

That sounds good thank you. These pears have been very hard for a very long time; even the ones that fall on the ground are just staying that way. They are also inordinately large, and with a kind of bumpy texture. I should post a pic of one. The birds aren't interested in them and with good reason!
The photo above shows how two pears looked two months ago. I will be anxious to prune this fall tho and see what happens. Thx.

[Francesco Delvillani]

Pear tree can be pruned severely....often they are kept small. Anyway prune in late winter or during fall-winter if you don't have severe freeze..

[catgrass]

Your pears are probably canning pears. I don't know their actual name, but we had several when I was a kid growing up. You can peel them and eat them, they are sweet, but basically used for canning.

[JONA]

Your pears are probably canning pears. I don't know their actual name, but we had several when I was a kid growing up. You can peel them and eat them, they are sweet, but basically used for canning.

The most common pear for canning is the Bartlett ( Williams).
It's a funny thing but over this side of the pond we call them by their old European name of Williams ( real name Williams Bon Chretien) when we eat them as fresh pears...but once canned we call them by your American name for them...Bartletts

[Taiji]

I hope they are Bartlett's/Williams because I really love a good one! Maybe Joe or Jane Bartlett was the first one to can them.

Went and looked closely at the tree today, some of the leaves are beginning to thin out, and I got a clear view of the watersprouts on steroids. Some are 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and shooting straight up!

[Taiji]

fall color pear.JPG (43.57 KiB) Viewed 2261 times

Am bringing this thread up again because I so enjoyed the fall color that this old pear tree gave us. The green on top of the tree is not part of the pear, but a neighboring Ponderosa Pine beyond.

I would guess that the tree gave about 12 to 14 pears. Most were really oversized with a really bumpy surface. About 3 were edible while the rest remained hard as rocks. A couple were really juicy, one was more along the lines of an Asian pear texture. But, I am hopeful for next year, since a few pears were good it shows the tree is capable of producing some good fruit. Hopefully when I get to those watersprouts things will improve.

I wonder if I should fertilize next year too? Wondering too, if this tree might just be from a seed that someone planted decades ago, and so, gives somewhat odd fruit?

[!potatoes!]

your description of them (hard as rocks, bumpy) makes me think kieffer pear, a euro/asian cross that looks a bit like a bartlett but doesn't act like it. it may be the most common fruiting pear (mostly because of its better than average fireblight resistance) in non-commercial production in the states. I eat them but a friend with a pear orchard thinks they're only good for grafting onto or for making cider and then boiling that down to pear sugar - there's some sugar but not much other flavor.

[Taiji]

Thanks for the info. I think you may well be right on the Kieffer pear. I googled some photos of Kieffer and a lot of them do look like what I had. Big, odd shaped, bumpy, hard as rocks, grainy. I read some info too about them and found that they are a long winter keeper type pear, and need to be picked before ripe (which isn't hard since they don't ripen on the tree anyway!) and chilled for a long time to start the ripening process.

It also said that Kieffer is an old pear mostly found on old homesteads, often the last thing standing in old abandoned family orchards. That fits this property to a tee! Next year I'll remember the early picking and chilling treatment and see what happens.

Good info, thx!

[catgrass]

Interesting. That is probably what is on our old homestead, too. My grandparents and all the community just called them "canning" pears, which they did. I am 62 years old, and remembering my grandpa would have me climb the tree and shake it to get the big pears at the top to fall. He sold them to a grocery store in town, about 20 miles north of us. He had 4 trees -there is only one left now, and it is failing rapidly. Survived many a hurricane and tropical storm.

[Taiji]

That's a neat memory for you! I don't know much of the orchard history of this old homestead we purchased. Coincidentally though, I lived right next door for a few years when I was about 7-10 yrs. old. Most likely this old pear tree and the old apple tree were there growing then in 1959! But, I never really noticed them.

This is the website where I found the info on the Kieffer pear.
https://www.ediblecommunities.com/louisv ... hillin.htm

None of the pears I got though look like the old photo that is in this article. I think it's been retouched to look red. My pears were all large and yellow.

[catgrass]

Ours, too. Never saw any red on any of them. And really, not real juicy, but enough to be sweet. Pa-pa used to nail tin around the trunk to keep the coons from climbing the trees and eating the pears and breaking the limbs