Can Asian pears grow is semi-desert climates?

Please help me, I am a new grower. I

live in Hargeisa, Somaliland and want to grow so many different fruit trees, bushes and vines. I started some apples, as well as stone fruits from seeds my brother got me, because they don’t even sell fresh stone fruits like peaches and plums in this country. I wanted to try and order scion and rootstock from various nurseries to try growing my own different fruit trees. This gives me 2 challenges, one I have never grafted before and two can they even grow in this environment. Such as Asian pears can they grow here?

5 Likes

You will be limited to tropical and subtropical fruit. If you want to grow the fruit you listed look up that fruit For Florida USA There are only a handful of those that can grow in your type of climate.

3 Likes

It’s the lack of chilling that’s the issue not the dry climate. Many fruits grow better in dry climates than in wet humid areas. But many fruits such as most peaches and pears need hundreds of hours at or below 45F in order to bloom and leaf out. There are low chill varieties that need 200 hours of chilling or less, ie ones grown in southern Florida.

3 Likes

@applenut is (was?) doing some work growing apples in the tropics. I believe he induced dormancy by defoliating the apples, so that approach may work for Asian pears. I’ve also seen reference to growers in low-elevation Taiwan grafting flower buds from high-elevation trees every year to get around the chill requirement. If you have good refrigeration, you might be able to collect scions with flower buds, store them in the fridge for a few months, then graft them back onto the tree. Sounds like a lot of work, but I know many of us on here have done more work for less payoff.

3 Likes

If you’re going to order scions from local nurseries, ask them what would grow in locale and produce fruit.

For your climate, I would think strawberry and blueberry would be less effort and higher payoff. There’s also fruit tree that are more warmth loving like lychee and citrus.

1 Like

Thank Thank you for the response

1 Like

I thought it might be possible because some people in Arizona were growing various fruit trees https://youtu.be/7tLZAcOl9R4

1 Like

I actually contacted them last year to get some apple varieties, but because it was late in the season their stock was very little.

2 Likes

You are right there are fruit trees like citrus, guavas, mangos and pomegranates easily grown here. I wanted to try trees that are not available here and see if, maybe, possibly, I could grow them.

1 Like

Do you have pictures of the property? There is always a way to do what you want. You might like this video it demonstrates dry climate climate farming techniques

Europeans pears such as hood do well in dry low chill climates. @Richard has grown hood pears as an example in California which is very dry. Callery pear rootstock is what I use as it is drought tolerant as our climate in Kansas is given to both wet and dry cycles.

2 Likes

I am planning to buy land soon so I don’t have pictures yet, but it will probably look like the areas in this video https://youtu.be/OY1SG_622pk. I visited this farm a while back and apart from good farming practices improving the area, it looks like the area I plan to get land.

1 Like

Arizona is at latitude ~32. Somaliland is latitude ~10. The higher the latitude, the more pronounced seasonal variation in temperature. What is similar may be the dryness and high daily temperature variation.

1 Like

That is very true we may be more different than I thought. In some of our winters we also get cold enough to have ice form in sitting water, so I thought it maybe cold enough for similar plants to Arizona or at least the part of Arizona the farm I showed you the YouTube video has.

1 Like

Go to this link and scroll down to “Climate”

From that description, I do not think you will have success with fruits from the Genus Prunus. Very low chill Pomes (apple, pear, quince) such as those developed in Israel are a possibility. I recommend common figs that do not require the wasp for pollination.

Water supply is a big question. I estimate each tree will need 40 gallons of water twice per week at least 6 months per year, and once per week other months.

2 Likes

Thank you Richard for the advice. I was looking at apples grown in Uganda by the organisation @jcguarneri mentioned as possible fruits plants to grow.

Also are plants on bidngrow only sold locally or do they sell internationally? Most of my problem is that not many people will or can sell plants to where I am at.

1 Like

I recommend you check for sellers in Turkey, for example Izmir.

1 Like