How to prevent tree blossoms/fruit from falling off tree

Discussion in 'Fruit and Nut Trees' started by Maxximus, Jan 16, 2015.

  1. Maxximus

    Maxximus Member

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    About 6 years ago I planted a seed from a Chinese Pear/Apple tree and today it stands in my front yard at about 15-20 feet tall. 2 years ago the tree shocked everyone and blossomed, although a small amount and last year the tree was completely covered in amazing white blossoms! An awesome sight which put to shame the cherry trees on our street LOL!

    After the blossoms fell, I had about 50 tiny pear apples left growing on my tree. However one by one they began falling off when they reached the size of large cherry. Two of them managed to get the size of a plum before falling off.

    Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening? I was thinking maybe the tree was still too young to produce a crop. This year will be its 7th birthday. Is the tree missing some nutrient or is this what you get when you grow a fruit tree from a seed which came from a pear apple from Safeway!

    The tree looks awesome regardless of whether it produces fruit or not - it gets its leaves very early and they stay very late into fall. If I can get at least ONE mature fruit this year then I will be one happy camper!
     
  2. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    Most commercial Asian Pears require cross-pollination to produce fruit; this is even more likely to be true for pears grown from seed. Try hand pollinating some of the flowers this spring, using flowers or pollen from a different pear tree.
     
  3. Maxximus

    Maxximus Member

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    thanks for the reply! The problem is not getting the blossoms to produce fruit, as I had tons of small fruit growing after the blossoms fell off the tree. The issue was that as they got to about the size of a cherry, the fruit began falling off the branches. I managed to get one fruit to get to the size of a plum but it too fell off the tree. I bit into it and it was indeed an immature pear/apple. I'm just wondering why all the fruit was falling off the tree before maturing?
     
  4. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    It sounds like you are growing an Asian pear (Pyrus pyrifolia). As it is a seedling it may never produce fruits of the size and consistency of cloned orchard cultivars. Otherwise it may be possible that the fruits are not aborting immediately due to lack of fertilization but developing partially and then falling off - this behavior is seen in other kinds of trees anyway. If you don't want to try pollinating it yourself then you should buy one or more named cultivars of Asian pears and plant them nearby, so cross-pollination becomes possible. Or just grow the one you have now as an ornamental.

    Another factor to consider is that this tree may grow at least double the size it is now over time -Asian pears not on dwarfing root-stocks may reach 50 ft. I once measured one in my area whose branches spread over the entire front yard of the property it was planted on (see Van Pelt, Champion Trees of Washington State, University of Washington Press for details). It was producing brown fruits of intermediate or smallish size, that looked like they were probably hard and unappealing - but I didn't try any of them. Sometime later I saw that it had been brutalized, as everyone thinks fruit trees should be dinky - whether they are actually genetically dwarf or dwarfed (by root-stocks) specimens that are being eaten from or not.
     
  5. Maxximus

    Maxximus Member

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    2016 UPDATE

    This year I had another massive amount of blossoms on my tree like in previous year HOWEVER this year instead of all the fruit falling off when the size of a golf ball I had at least 50 full grown pears on my tree! however, They do not appear to be the same fruit from which I grew the seed from. My fruit on the tree today is a pear - the seed I used was from a Chinese pear apple. regardless, I have thrilled to finally have some fruit to eat from my 25 foot tree that looks awesome in my front yard! Very cool!!!
     
    wcutler likes this.
  6. Sundrop

    Sundrop Well-Known Member

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    Congratulations. So, what did you do to achieve this? Have you tried hand pollinating? Or may be the tree was simply too young to bear fruit in previous years?
     
  7. Maxximus

    Maxximus Member

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    Actually I didn't do a thing except place a few fruit tree spikes under it in the spring. I picked a bunch of fruit this weekend and indeed they look nothing like the fruit from which I used the seed to grow my tree!!! Weird! The original fruit was a Asian pear (the one that looks like an apple and is crispy like and apple but very, very juicy and a pear taste)
     

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