Historically, Pears are divided into early and late (also by season, summer, winter etc)
they also blossom at different times, the period of growth most susepable to wind damage. The flowering and fertilisation of a flower is time limited, beyond which no fruit forms, or in some cases, forms and drops off or forms poor mishappen, split, etc. some self sterile pear trees perform better next to other types of pear trees.
The wind and the rain both seriously effect the ability for the insects to pollinate the blossom. This year was particularly bad.
The pear blossom was early in my orchard this year but, even though it wasnt windy, it was very wet so very few insects were about, I took a duster and pollinated the blossom on one side of a pear tree by hand.Which caused loads of fine fruit on that side but none on the other side left to nature . I was unable to pollinate all of the pear trees at that time as not all of the blossom was fully open, some others have faired better than others
Viewing the orchards in monorgan and longforgan, carse of gowrie, it was clear to see that some of the huge pear trees (over 300 years old) were ladened with fruit where as others were completely bare of any fruit at all.
This was also the case in a more recently planted orchard of scottish heritage fruit
I suspect the reason why there are so few pears this year is due to limited pear types in peoples gardens, (B&Q, Aldis, Lidls and nurseries and commercial orchards across the UK and Europe eg confrence and concord.
One solution the people of Newburgh came up with was when any vastly big old pear tree was cut down, they grafted scion material around the edge of the stump, perhaps as many as 20. 4-5 would be allowed to reach full height . Due to pear trees propensity to twist, this gives them the appearance of palm trees but also gives the tree longevity. if one limb cankers, breaks or dies, it can be cut back to a stump and another new scion gafted onto the stump. the other 4 limbs will continue to bare fruit during this process
The types of pears on each limb also vary, eg crawford, lindores, bon creeton, and black auchan, the crawford was the earliest pear tree to fruit in scotland at the time (end of july beginning of august, the lindores the end of august. Bon Creeton, Sept-Octob The black auchan produces fruit up until the end of December.
This also has the knock on effect that the individual limbs will flower at different or overlapping times, increasing the probability that at least some of the blossom on some of the limbs will survive the pollination process and produce fruit on some of the limbs of the tree.
The crawford was popular in the south of england were it survived well on the brow of ridges and other exposed places which had micro climates more akin to scotland.
The black auchan, the main winter pear in scotland failed to produce good quality fruit down south, the warmer weather ripened the fruit too quickly and produced a pear of the second quality as such the south of england has winter pears of its own which are better suited to that climate than the black auchen. In exposed areas of scotland it may continue producing fruit until Jan. The black auchen has a thick and unbleamished waxy skin making it an excellent keeping pear for the winter
The citron de carmes, the pear of the carmalite nuns, also called the madelane as it was ready by the feast of St Magdalen the 26th of July. In France. not Scotland. The fruit however, does not keep well on the tree and is liable to split. the longer ripening season in scotland is unfavourable for this variety, the fruit tends to split before it has ripened although it can be grown in the micro climate of scotland of a south facing wall to speed up the ripening process.
Many early french pears can and do survive in scotland but as autumn pears
Topic: No pears (Read 11704 times)
