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Sat, Apr 12, 14 at 23:02
| My '20th Century' Asian pear tree is starting to bloom and leaf out: |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Johnnysapples (My Page) on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 9:56
| Its exciting isn't it. I have one too, but I live further north and not much happening here yet. Last year my second spring after transplanting and it grew ten to twelve pairs at every flower. I had thinned it out to one pear per bud and ended up with fifty pears about 11/2" dia on my little tree. I was impressed with these trees! I have two the fist one said it needed a pollinator so I got the 20Th century to pollenate it. I bet I would have been fine with out the extra tree these trees fruit so much! The other thing I noticed is the bugs don't eat the leaves or tree. They grew perfectly fine. How old is your tree? It looks like it's a young one. Is this your first spring with it? |
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- Posted by Johnnysapples (My Page) on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 10:24
| This is what you have forward to getting in the first year. Look out for big yorkies! They pick the lower fruit to play with and eat when ripe. I thought I had more fruit than that. Maybe I thinned to fifty fruits then thinned to twenty five. There was five hundred on it for a couple weeks! Ten to twelve at every tip. |
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| Johnnysapples: I know you didn't ask my opinion so please excuse if this sounds rude. And it's just my opinion but that's 2-3 times too many fruit on that little tree. You'll get bigger, better tasting fruit if you thin even more. Lots of fruit looks impressive but can stunt the tree, break limbs, and reduce fruit eating quality. Anyone who recommends a pollinator for these trees apparently hasn't had to thin a big one. |
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| I planted this Asian pear in a isolated area of the lot, so I thought I would try it on an ultra-dwarf rootstock. Suffice to say it has been a dud so far. It's been at least 3-4 years in the ground and really lacks the vigor to fight for life, let alone fruit normally in our blast furnace heat. I may give it another year or two and then swear off ultra-dwarf rootstocks in the future. Johnnysapples, it is good to see a small, healthy, fruitful representation of this variety. I would sure like to have one. :) |
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| Johnnysapples, What rootstock is your 20th century on? I planted one on Betulifolia in the early fall of 2011 (potted from RollingRiver). Last year, it gave me 2 pears (from one bloom cluster, which I thinned to 2). Here's a current pic of mine. My guess is that it looks about how yours did last year, so I'm crossing my fingers for more. I'm not a big fan of Asian pears, but my family loves them and they are growing on me. |
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- Posted by Johnnysapples (My Page) on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 16:30
| I bought mine at a big box store,(Meijer's) and it didn't have the root stock labeled. I only paid $19 for most of my trees and $12.99 for some of the smaller ones. These pear trees are really weak for the first few years. You should stake it. It might be fine now but if you get a wind storm it can snap the tree in half, especially with fruit on the top. Fruitnut, Thanks for the advice. It did stunt the trees branches growth to about only six inches of growth. My other tree only had about ten pears on it and it's branches grew about a foot or so. The pears were really good eating. I put them on the kitchen table and they disappeared in no time at all. I cant imagine what it's going to be like when our trees grow up! I do a lot of reading but I am all new to fruit trees. I respect all advice. There is some very experienced people here. Like you, Harvestman, and konrad to name a few. I've been reading Konrad's posts. He has such great pictures! I like his coyote pictures the best but man he has some postcards! |
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- Posted by Johnnysapples (My Page) on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 16:45
| Bob-z6 If your tree does what mine did last year all those spurs going up the trunk and branches with the big buds will all flower out ten to twelve flowers each along with most of your tips. It looks to me your tree will look just like mine did or even more. I can't zoom in on it though to get a good look but if those buds are about a 1/2" dia I bet you'll be surprised soon! Mrclint your tree does look like the buds are smaller on yours, but maybe it will do better in a couple more years. Either way I think the ultra dwarf root stock would be good for these trees in time because they put out way to much fruit. I'm sure you will be happy with it as it gets older. |
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| Johnnysapples, every spring I have to blast aphids off of it, and it gets black leaf tips as if suffering from a mild case of blight. Some years it blooms in the Fall. Asian pears are generally precocious, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope for it. Still nice to see healthy representations from other folks. :) |
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| Well, my harvest has been hit and miss this year. All of the fruit was on the small side, some were sweet and some not so much. I might give this tree another year or two before moving on. |
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