possible this year

[BUFFS]

for the first time in 3 yrs we have blossom on our williams pear espalier,loads of it and now its fingers crossed we get some summer,we have never had a pear in the 8yrs the tree has been here,so i am hoping....

[rustylady]

Fingers crossed for you Buffs.

[FB.]

Didn't Scotland have a relatively mild summer last year, while England had a poor one? I remember seeing the weather forecasts during 2012 and saying "I'm going to move to the Northwest of Britain where it's warm, dry and sunny!"
If so, perhaps it confirms that Williams - and many other pears - need more sun and warmth (in order to form blossom buds for the following year) than Scotland normally provides.

[StephenH]

Eight years? Flippin' 'eck! I hope apple trees come into bearing sooner than pears, or I'll have a few more years to wait! Mind you, it prolly depends on the rootstock: I believe very vigorous ones take longer than dwarfing or semi-dwarfing ones to crop, as far as apples are concerned at any rate.

[FB.]

Eight years? Flippin' 'eck! I hope apple trees come into bearing sooner than pears, or I'll have a few more years to wait! Mind you, it prolly depends on the rootstock: I believe very vigorous ones take longer than dwarfing or semi-dwarfing ones to crop, as far as apples are concerned at any rate.

Time to cropping depends on the conditions. Hot, dry, sunny conditions and shallow, low-fertility soil will soon bring even the most vigorous rootstocks into heavy and early cropping.
I have some pears on seedling rootstock which came into good cropping within two years of planting, and I have several apples on M25 rootstock which came into cropping the year after planting.
For me, dwarfs don't usually have enough vigour to support a even a mediocre crop - even the medium-vigour MM106 is a sickly runt in my soil; I have numerous 10yr old MM106's only about 4-6ft in size which produce very little in the way of good quality fruit (most of what they produce being small or suffering from bitter pit unless they're intensively managed).

A happy tree will grow like mad and not fruit. An unhappy tree will blossom profusely but have very small highly coloured fruit.
Trees crop best when they're just slightly hungry and slightly thirsty, and fruit bud formation (for the following spring) is greatest in warm, sunny, dry summers.

[StephenH]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

[BUFFS]

Didn't Scotland have a relatively mild summer last year, while England had a poor one? I remember seeing the weather forecasts during 2012 and saying "I'm going to move to the Northwest of Britain where it's warm, dry and sunny!"
If so, perhaps it confirms that Williams - and many other pears - need more sun and warmth (in order to form blossom buds for the following year) than Scotland normally provides.

last year was the same as the awful year before,a lovely 2-3 weeks in april /may,then the sun went on its holidays,we had all our normal rain and more,but that does not warrant mentioning on this coast, we dont get floods as we dont build on the flood plains,the forecast kept telling us about sunny days ahead but they never materialised,so the office of guessology got it wrong again,more interested in edinburgh weather,totally different,but ,like london ,they think the sun shines out their butts,to get a proper forecast we go on the net,loads better.the last time we had a decent summer(thats on our scale,not englands)was 2009...now working on the theory that this year WILL be different,peppers sown in feb now nearly 3ins tall,no change there then...