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Pear problems

EricsGardenEricsGarden Posts: 151
in Fruit & veg
We moved home in Jan 2018 and our garden has two pear trees. One has had plenty of fruit each year. The second one had no fruit at all in 2018 (that long hot summer) and the previous resident said it never has fruit but she never did anything to any of them. In early 2019 I pruned the tree quite a lot and that summer we had about 5 fruits on the whole tree.

This tree is different to the other that bears lots of fruit. If you look at the photos below you'll see it has lots of trunks. There are three coming out of the ground, whereas the tree that has lots of fruit only has one. As you get higher branches start to crisscross eachother. There were lots of branches touching and rubbing against eachother. I have cut away lots of these crossing branches, but there are still a lot.

I'm wondering if I should cut down the others so there's only one main tree trunk.


Posts

  • robairdmacraignilrobairdmacraignil Posts: 782
    edited March 2020
    If it was my tree I would find the biggest trunk and cut off all of the others. Most fruit trees are sold on root stock which is from a plant that would not be a cultivated pear. It is common for the root stock to sometimes produce its own suckers that will grow into proper trunks if allowed to continue to grow. The grafted pear that was on top of the original trunk would be starved of resources from the grafted root stock which will send much of the water and nutrient to its own branches rather than continuing to just support the grafted pear. You can sometimes see the line between the graft and the root stock on the trunk of a fruit tree. Here is a clip of a rose plant in my parents' garden which has some suckers of a less colouful rose root stock that I was just about to remove so it would continue to favor the grafted cultivated rose with the red coloured flowers.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/sustainableveg/videos
  • EricsGardenEricsGarden Posts: 151
    pansyface said:
    It has flower buds on it.🙂

    Does it flower at a different time from the productive tree? If so, maybe it doesn't have a pollinating partner in a neighbour’s garden while the productive one maybe does.

    As to its shape. Well, it’s a bit late in the day to be telling it that you think it should look more like a normal tree. If you go chopping stems off now, it’s just going to look like a poor shivering naked thing.

    If you like it as a plant, as a form in the garden, as a perch for the birds, then just prune it lightly. If you think it looks ugly and is just a waste of space, dig it out. No point in falling between the two.
    I think they both flower at the same time, but I'll have to check as I'm not 100% sure. I recall discussing pollination last year, but can't recall if the discussion was conclusive it not - it likely wasn't.

    I don't think it should look like a normal tree and I have no other problem with it, I'm wondering if it would be better off or not and if the lack of fruit is a signal that it's not as happy as it could be.

    As a plant I'm perfectly happy with it, but I would be happier knowing it's happy and even happier than that it if had fruit.

    We attract a lot of birds to the garden now, and I do mean a lot. Birds of prey are following them now with increasing frequency. So that tree is one of five trees in the garden (inc two evergreen) that provide vital cover for the birds. So it's more than welcome to stay.

  • EricsGardenEricsGarden Posts: 151
    robairdmacraignil said:
    If it was my tree I would find the biggest trunk and cut off all of the others. Most fruit trees are sold on root stock which is from a plant that would not be a cultivated pear. It is common for the root stock to sometimes produce its own suckers that will grow into proper trunks if allowed to continue to grow. The grafted pear that was on top of the original trunk would be starved of resources from the grafted root stock which will send much of the water and nutrient to its own branches rather than continuing to just support the grafted pear. You can sometimes see the line between the graft and the root stock on the trunk of a fruit tree. Here is a clip of a rose plant in my parents' garden which has some suckers of a less colouful rose root stock that I was just about to remove so it would continue to favor the grafted cultivated rose with the red coloured flowers.
    Interesting. Do you think this tree is grafted? I haven't noticed anything that would indicate two different types of tree.
  • robairdmacraignilrobairdmacraignil Posts: 782
    theericrob said:
    robairdmacraignil said:
    If it was my tree I would find the biggest trunk and cut off all of the others. Most fruit trees are sold on root stock which is from a plant that would not be a cultivated pear. It is common for the root stock to sometimes produce its own suckers that will grow into proper trunks if allowed to continue to grow. The grafted pear that was on top of the original trunk would be starved of resources from the grafted root stock which will send much of the water and nutrient to its own branches rather than continuing to just support the grafted pear. You can sometimes see the line between the graft and the root stock on the trunk of a fruit tree. Here is a clip of a rose plant in my parents' garden which has some suckers of a less colouful rose root stock that I was just about to remove so it would continue to favor the grafted cultivated rose with the red coloured flowers.
    Interesting. Do you think this tree is grafted? I haven't noticed anything that would indicate two different types of tree.

    Looks to me like it might be and from what I have read most pear trees sold commercially are grafted to root stock. It might be a root stock from something fairly similar to the pear variety that was desired for its fruit quality so the leaves and branches could look fairly similar. Can you remember if the five fruit it did have were on the branches coming from higher up on the thickest stem as this could be another indicator that the lower branches and those from the ground might be another variety that was not selected for its fruit. One of the reasons for grafting is to keep the tree to a desired size so if the tree is not very big it might also indicate that it was grafted.

    It is your call as to weather you want to prioritise fruit or shelter for the birds in your garden and I can understand your reasons for going either way with your question.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/sustainableveg/videos
  • Joyce GoldenlilyJoyce Goldenlily Posts: 2,933
    The other possibility is that it was planted too deeply originally and it has thrown up lots of suckers which could be a wild variety which would only carry very small hard green pears which are inedible. If you are happy with it, leave it alone and enjoy the flowers. If it bugs you and you want a tree which fruits, remove it and start again.
  • EricsGardenEricsGarden Posts: 151
    robairdmacraignil said:
    theericrob said:
    robairdmacraignil said:
    If it was my tree I would find the biggest trunk and cut off all of the others. Most fruit trees are sold on root stock which is from a plant that would not be a cultivated pear. It is common for the root stock to sometimes produce its own suckers that will grow into proper trunks if allowed to continue to grow. The grafted pear that was on top of the original trunk would be starved of resources from the grafted root stock which will send much of the water and nutrient to its own branches rather than continuing to just support the grafted pear. You can sometimes see the line between the graft and the root stock on the trunk of a fruit tree. Here is a clip of a rose plant in my parents' garden which has some suckers of a less colouful rose root stock that I was just about to remove so it would continue to favor the grafted cultivated rose with the red coloured flowers.
    Interesting. Do you think this tree is grafted? I haven't noticed anything that would indicate two different types of tree.

    Looks to me like it might be and from what I have read most pear trees sold commercially are grafted to root stock. It might be a root stock from something fairly similar to the pear variety that was desired for its fruit quality so the leaves and branches could look fairly similar. Can you remember if the five fruit it did have were on the branches coming from higher up on the thickest stem as this could be another indicator that the lower branches and those from the ground might be another variety that was not selected for its fruit. One of the reasons for grafting is to keep the tree to a desired size so if the tree is not very big it might also indicate that it was grafted.

    It is your call as to weather you want to prioritise fruit or shelter for the birds in your garden and I can understand your reasons for going either way with your question.
    So two weeks later and the tree looks very different now. There are clearly two different trees growing in the same spot. On the right, the branches growing from the main trunk now all have flowers with only a few leaves growing around the flowers, whereas on the left the branches growing from the other trunks have lots of light coloured leaves and virtually no flowers at all. It's a little difficult to see from the photos, because the plants are so crisscrossed but when you follow a branch to see it which trunk it's from it's clear there are two different trees there.

    So it seems you were absolutely right about the root stock!

    In this first photo the two plants branches are mostly all mixed, but it's clear to me there are many fewer branches with flowers than branches with leaves, which explains why there was so little fruit.

    In the second photo of the other pear tree, it's a bit easier to see that to the left of it there is another tree growing with the same light coloured leaves. We never noticed this tree until now.

    Orange = branches with flowers
    Blue = branches with only leaves


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