This tree took several years to fruit. It had a couple major branches break a few years ago from heavy fruit set. Besides that clean up I haven’t really pruned.
I’ve watched many videos and read posts, but I just don’t know how to approach this tree.
Is every “straight up” branch a water sprout? Even ones far out on to major branches? Should they all be removed?
If so, there’s a lot of them. I know you’re not supposed to prune too much at once. I wonder if that’s all I’ll be able to do this year.
I don’t know what to do about the top. I’m fine with it being tall and letting the birds have the top, but besides that, should it be pruned? Is it creating too much shade?
I like that several of the long branches that were once more upward are now more lateral or sloping down so I can reach them. But some of them are now meeting each other at the end of these branches. How would you approach this:
I would remove crossed branches and other branches growing into branches only. I noticed you have some nice fruit buds and you dont want to prune to much and reduce your fruit harvest! Those fat football shaped blooms will soon be pears!
I’d kind of think even if they removed 100% of the water spouts they’d have a three hundred pears. Seems impractical to thin them by hand. Not removing any major branches this year I don’t think it would be too much at once.
I’d take off a lot of the water spouts between the purple lines at the center of the tree where they’re not going to get a lot of light and reduce airflow. At the top I’d take off the dominant, slightly curving leader and let the less vigorous one on the left take over.
That makes me tired looking at that picture, you have a project. Yes, still okay to prune. Take the information you have already gotten and go with it. You probably want to prune it over 2-3 sessions. Take a break, walk back a ways and look at the big picture. The stuff in the center that gets no sun will always be small and inferior. Ask yourself, do I want 500+ pears, consisting of 80 nice pears and the rest a bunch of small less quality (rhymes with slap) pears, or do want 200-300 all around nice pears? Also, prune some of the branches so you don’t get anymore breakage. Some of the lower branches are really long so you may want to prune them back a bit just to shape it up and lower the risk of breakage.
Then, keep on top of it every year. It will really take a few years to shape it up to what you like and then maintain it. Google the 1-2-3 pruning method for pears, it’s a fairly good reference…but not what you should focus on this year, more when you get back to maintenance pruning.
I’m not sure what to think about letting them go as far verticle as they would like. I constantly top my pear trees to keep them under control and keep the majority of the fruit in reachable distance. Otherwise you end up with so much growth way up there that you can never affect later on.
