I have a tree (about 36" tall) that was set in ground last fall. Made it through winter. It’s a single trunk with no branching but leaves from ground to top. It’s now about 7 foot tall and is 18" above the support stake.
Should I top it now to force branching or wait until dormant?
Thank for any suggestions or help.
IMO, better to leave it for now. Why? It is getting late to top a tree which can trigger growth into the fall that may not harden off properly. Leave it for winter and then top it about the 6 ft mark. When growth initiates in spring, carefully pull the new limbs down so they will grow out more than up.
It’s only July. Texax 9b has a long growing season I would assume? I’d top it, but I live dangerously. 
That’s a tough one. I live in 9a south Louisiana. We don’t get our first freeze until sometimes early December. Even if it’s early, say early November, its usually barely below freezing for a few hours.
I’ve never seen actual freeze damage from young growth where I live. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but advice that is wise to follow in places who actually have legit winters often doesn’t apply down here.
I’ve never had a tree act like this before. I’d like it to branch and set the first scaffold but I’m afraid if I top it it will branch just below the cut which would be 6 foot off the ground. If I prune it why dormant I’d cut it at 36-42 inches.
I’ve also read that they like to spire and I’ll need to train the branches outward.
Thanks for the replies
jmm
Thinking about it more now, I should mention that in my experience Asian pears (pears in general) have a tendency to just break a new apical bud and keep growing straight up even when there’s mature buds on the tree. They’ll tend to branch more, even just on their own, the next year.
I have a Tawara asian pear that had a mediocre branch structure, so I headed it to about 36" spring '24. It was a pretty unhealthy tree due to being root-pruned horribly aggressively at the nursery (root stubs 1-2" from flare, no fine roots at all, on a 7 ft tall tree). Anyways it basically sat out for last year, had some leaves but didn’t grow, I thought it was dying in the fall. But this year it has put on a ton of growth, all down the trunk, and actually very little growth from near the heading cut. Some of the branches have already grown 3 feet. Next year I will graft most of the branches to Chojuro
This is just one anecdote so probably not very helpful. I will say though that of my 7 pears, the ones I have pruned aggressively early on have basically sat out a year. The ones with better branch structure that didn’t need much pruning have grown steadily each year. With the exception of the Patten euro pear- I cut that tree in half upon planting this spring and it has grown with crazy vigor. I don’t regret all the aggressive pruning- some really needed it to have good branch structure while keeping them short.
Thanks for all the info. Seems that every way will work just a slightly different speed. My first choice is let Nature take it’s course so I think I’ll just let it be.
This is my first pear so I am a greenie.