Pear Tree.

[Ste `n` Mags]

Hiya... just planted my first pear tree... a two year old, 5 foot tree, `Williams` Bon Chrétien... any magick i should need to know...???

[FB.]

Pears hate dry soil.
They can take several years to reach fruiting age.
If fruit blossoms don't turn into fruit, you may need a pollinator. There seems to be some difference in opinion as to whether Williams is partially-self-fertile, or whether it requires a pollination partner. My Williams grows between a Conference and a Concorde, for pollination purposes; they all can pollinate each other, although the latter two are definitely part-self-fertile.

[Ste `n` Mags]

Methinks i shall have to plant another tree then `eh F.B?

[FB.]

Well, I'm not sure if Williams is sufficiently self-fertile. Some nurseries say yes, others say no.
My "best guess" or "gut feeling" - from seeing the cropping of my pears after varying pollinator activity - is that Williams will give a small crop in natural conditions without a partner, but will crop normally if you use a paint brush or cotton bud to hand-pollinate the flowers.

If someone within shouting distance has a pear tree, it may well pollinate yours, so you might not need a partner, although cropping will becomre more erratic the further away the pollinator is located, due to less chance of bees travelling form one tree to another. Bees just love to fly between side-by-side trees (doing a good pollinaiton job in the process), but rather than fly across a 100yd field to the next tree, bees tend to just load up on pollen from the one tree and then go home.

If you have room, I'd plant a pollinator next to your Williams (at the correct spacing to aloow for tree growth). I'd especially recommend Conference, since it's compatible with Williams, it's flowering time overlaps, it's compact, partly self-fertile, fruits at a young age and is fairly reliable.

[Snadger]

My Confeence pear has flowered and set fruit for the first year. There's loads of em! The fruit all seem to be facing upwards though ie point end down! I know the flower was on the fat ends so can only asume the pears must turn round with there own weight?

Do pears have a June drop or do I need to start thinking about thinning I wonder?

PS sorry to hijack your thread ste & mags! (embarrassment icon)

[FB.]

Wait for the drop. If they still look too heavy in July, take a few more off.
The pears should eventually hang downwards, but self-pollinated Conference pears have a tendency to grow in all kinds of strange shapes.

With my fruit bushes, I don't do much thinning. I let the pests tell me which fruits to remove.
I find that removing the pest-damaged fruit as soon as I see them, throughout the season, does much the same job as thinning, with the benefit that I end up with a good portion of the crop being in pretty good condition in most years and most of the pests (which would grow into egg-laying adults for the next growing season) will have been destroyed with the fruit that was removed.

[Snadger]

Wait for the drop. If they still look too heavy in July, take a few more off.
The pears should eventually hang downwards, but self-pollinated Conference pears have a tendency to grow in all kinds of strange shapes.

With my fruit bushes, I don't do much thinning. I let the pests tell me which fruits to remove.
I find that removing the pest-damaged fruit as soon as I see them, throughout the season, does much the same job as thinning, with the benefit that I end up with a good portion of the crop being in pretty good condition in most years and most of the pests (which would grow into egg-laying adults for the next growing season) will have been destroyed with the fruit that was removed.

Good thinking FB!

[Ste `n` Mags]

Thanks for the info guys, looks like a Conference is going in this weekend...!!!