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I planted a bare root conference pear tree late november 2019 now it has plenty of green leaves but no blossom , is it now to late for blossom ? will it survive my other conference had loads of fruit on it but in the wind i have now lost 80% of pears , thank you
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Sounds like your pear is doing well - pears are a bit slower to come in to fruit than apples as a general rule. The first few years of a young trees life should be about it growing not fruiting anyway. If an immature tree does set a load of fruit then almost all of it should be broken off i.e. thinned - one or two fruit only should be left to develop and ripen per tree.
Growing good tree fruit is a long term aim - if you want fast fruit too then I'd advise planting something like gooseberries or loganberries between your fruit tress - these soft fruits will produce in under a couple of years and when the trees get bigger they'll shade out the smaller stuff anyway.
PS the 80% of conference fruit if they dropped off in the last few days were almost certainly unfertilized - the "June drop" was the old name for this but the weather has been much warmer this year than in times gone by, so things are happening earlier. -
Oooooooo! Don’t like the sound of this June drop Nickdub. First time mine has had any good amount of fruit. Fingers and everything else crossed now.
Kind Regards..........RobComment
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The June drop has probably already happened for your tree Rob - if so all the immature fruitlets left now have the potential to become full size fruit - if there really are a lot of them then give it another two weeks and start thinning them by carefully pinching the fruit stalks, so they disconnect from the tree. Thinning fruit is a chore and I know I never manage to thin enough, but if you can make yourself do it when there is a lot of fruit set you'll get almost the same weight of crop but each fruit will be much larger than if the tree was left unthinned.Comment
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Thank you very much Nick it was a great helpComment
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You're very welcome - Happy gardening :-)Comment
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Nick my other pear tree is going well but it has not blossomed is it now to late so i have to wait till next year for my fruit ?Comment
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Yes, no blossom this year, then obviously no fruit. The basic process with tree fruit is that over the course of a spring/summer the tree makes two sorts of new growth - extension and spur. The extension growth does what it says on the tin - the spur growth are developing fruit bearing bits of the tree including the dormant fruit buds which will hopefully develop further, flower and fruit in the succeeding years - that's why a good sunny year, as this one seems to be going to be. will hopefully lead to good spur growth and a bumper crop next year on older trees. Some other fruit such as gooseberries bear fruit in this semi-permanent spur type system, others like say blackcurrants fruit mainly on 1 year old growth.
Of course that's only a broad outline - lots of details affect things e.g. some apples are what's known as tip bearers (Bramley for one) and a good proportion of the fruit spurs on them develop on the ends of the current year's extension growth. It has been known for enthusiastic pruning to chop off almost all the fruit spurs on a Bramley, meaning that the tree only ever had one or two fruit on it.Comment
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Bought a patio conference pear tree five years ago, in very large pot. No garden. Always had blossom but No pears. This year I got my feather duster and tickled the blossom! Have now about 10 pears forming. Keeping fingers crossed they stay attached.Comment
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Hi SM - I expect your fruit would have dropped by now if they were going to - everything early this year. I don't know if you've already done this but if not, you might want to consider putting a tray or large dish under your container with a mix of sand and gravel in it. This then means you can water and feed from the bottom. Fruit trees need a lot of water when its hot, and they are trying to swell the immature fruit.
Happy gardening - NickComment
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