Hi all. We put in a few pear trees about 4 years ago. We really have very little experience with pruning. A friends father who has a large farm in Sicily came a few years ago and helped us do some shaping and pruning and then a little again last spring. What is going on is that the trees seem to be growing very vertically. Some of the brances are thick too and the research I did is saying to weight the brances down, or stake them to pull them, but they are now like 3inches in diameter (some of them). Also they are sending up some very tall new growth from where they were last pruned. The varieties are Seckle, Collette, and another I can't recall. Any advice appreciated. Thanks, Charles
The idea of weighting the branchs is to open up the middle of the tree for good air circulation. Even on 3" branchs they can be trained,altered, to go outwards, more towards the horizontal. Somewhere, out where thebranchs are limber, hang a weighted bottle of water or sand on the limb, it will sag down and eventually that will seem normal and the branch will continue that route. You may have to have the decorative bottle on until fall but, thats the solution. The fruit is borne on 2 - 3 year old shoots, so you can prune those new shoots back at the tips and eliminate those others that you really don't need. Remember that quality is better than quanity, every one that has a backyard pear tree has many times more fruit than you can use, give away, make wine etc.. Opening up the middle will help in air circulation and aid in preventing fungi growth.
Here is a very recent photo I took of one of the trees. Not sure what to do with them. Does anyone have any advice from the photo? I am just not sure of myself - and am very hesitant to do something bad to them. This is one of 6 trees. Thanks, Charles
I would thin some of the very upright younger growth out, and train the others to be less vertical and angle them away from the center of the tree. In our orchard, which is somewhat windy, we use loops of twine staked to the ground or tied to the base of the trunk to pull branches down, along with bamboo tied into the branches to spread them out. Pears want to be very upright, and need constant attention to counteract this tendency. It is best to do some training every summer, while the wood is still limber- as the wood matures it become brittle and harder to train.
Unpruned pears make handsome tall specimens that can be seen flowering now. The problem in the home orchard is keeping them low for easy spraying and picking. Partly this is remedied by using dwarfing rootstocks.
From your picture it looks as if there are 3 - 4 main branchs, perfect! Now what you should do is to trim off the upright growth. These sun seeking branchs will give you the off shoots. Cut them back to 3-5 buds on each vertical and, they will give side shoots galore. It is really hard to think that you are butchering a tree but, like all adolescents they will benefit from it.
Before someone takes offense at the terms butchering, what I really meant was that care now will give benefits later.
re butchering.. :) Dr. Alex Shigo in his book Pithy Points says : " #55 - Don't call tree mutilators, butchers. Butchers are highly skilled people." not taking offense, just taking the opportunity to spread the word. another just for fun, " # 40 - People who call fertilizers plant food should wash their mouths out with wound dressing."
