Yeah, Ayers are harder to find. But, I have seen them at Lowe’s.
We have five pears, the other two are Harrow Sweet and Maxine (aka Starking Delicious), so I think we’re covered as far as pollinators are concerned. My three bigger pears are waking up, as seen above, but the apples are still slumbering.
Funny thing, I’m not a big fan of pears, but the Mrs is. I do like Maxine, we got some at a local orchard, and they were sweet, firm, but not gritty, so I said we gotta get one of those. We canned some of them last couple of years and they look very nice in the jars.
Our tree is from Stark’s, called a Starking Delicious. From the stuff I’ve read, it’s the same as a Maxine, so hope they’re right about that.
Ayers takes a little time to fruit. Kieffer, Douglas, Duchess etc produce twice as fast as Ayers. Some pears fruit the next year after I graft them. Here is farmingdale I grafted last year which has flower buds
I have an Ayers I could send you wood from next year. I bend and prune (waterspouts) a lot to continue to form its framework, so I can send lots I have Moonglow as its partner, too.
I don’t summer prune them. I’m incredibly afraid of fireblight, lol. So any waterspouts come off in dormant season.
Believe it or not improved kieffer though one of my earliest seldom loses its crop. Here is a picture from March 2016 confirming what your saying about it being early! 2016 was a great year for fruit regardless Here comes the 2016 apple and Pear harvest!
Kieffer and Orient have been my most dependable. Through it all they give me fruit each season. I have a few newbies in my back yard and I’m hoping they will do well also (Golden Boy and Frost).
Some Apricots blooms are open and plums are close which means pears will be blooming shortly! Look at those fat pear fruit buds! I added one apricot tree picture for reference.
Agree with @coolmantoole those don’t appear to be fruit buds yet. In future years I think those spur looking vegetative buds you have now will turn into fruit buds. Ayers like any of the small sugar pears can be hard to read in terms of fruit buds. Have seen seckle and other sugar pears suddenly put on fruit buds and bloom much to my surprise. I only knew a couple weeks before hand they were planning to bloom. Ayers is known to be a delayed bloomer and though your tree has the correct shape to bloom that pear typically makes you wait another year or two. Be careful pruning that tree because as you thin it out where those branches are looking untidy if you take to much it will force the tree into setting on more vegetative growth so make your cuts few and where you truly need to prune. Pears are never pretty in terms of branch structure making the best orchardist look like an amateur pruner.
Typically, I have to thin my peaches but this year I noticed many dropping anyway. After petal fall we had several nights in the low thirties. Also, did not see the normal bee activity I see during bloom. I was assuming it was so early this year that the bees just weren’t out in full force. Do you think the peaches below are dropping because of lack of pollination or freeze damage?
The pears are looking nice so far. Note the plum blooms getting ready to open I added for reference. The pear in the top picture that is so early is Douglas.