Pear Midge

[Losos]

I'm sure that would do the trick, but its too much work for the benefit as far as I'm concerned - thanks anyway for the suggestion.

You're welcome I was very demoralised the first year as the pear tree (And a few apple and plum) were one of the factors that made us buy this place. I also found the dreaded 'pear midge' is not covered in most books on pests & diseases.

It did take a fair bit of work but the tree has given us a fantastic crop since so (in our case) it was worth the effort. I do like a fresh pear with my morning porridge

[nickdub]

Well I've got the first part of my wrap-it-up-in-fleece experiment completed ie I wrap the buds on a few branches of pear pre-flowering, opened them briefly for pollination and yesterday re-wrapped them again. Obviously a bit of a faff, and certainly not a complete barrier to insects given my wrapping skills.

I'll report back in about a month on results, good or bad.

BTW it struck me that maybe I could combine this with an insecticidal spray, as obviously once the branch is wrapped the second time this will keep the bees out too.