I have a Meadows pear on its second season in ground as well. What do y’all think of its current growth? It seems like all branches have turned up and are taking off instead of spreading outward. Should I tip them to encourage branching or just let them be or is this just its natural form? Thinking far ahead, would you prune these way back come winter or let it continue its current form? Appreciate any help. This thing has absolutely skyrocketed this season. It’s about 10-12ish feet high already.
Chad, your pear has four leaders, and if left to their own devices they will conflict with each other as long as they’re there. Their branches will cross and fight for resources. Make your choice and take out three of them, as even if cut back to stubs their branch angles aren’t good. These might be good places to make dutch cuts:
It looks like many of your branches have good branch angles, but are curving up, as they all want to do. If you can tie or weight these to lower angles the tree will come into bearing sooner, and that will help tame it.
Keep in mind that @clarkinks takes a somewhat different approach to pears, and he grows a lot of them! Here’s a thread he commented in some time ago, along with a good discussion on others’ parts:
Great! I assume mine are on the same timeline as yours being locate so close(east side of Dallas). Heading up to Yellowstone in the next few days and I was hoping to get these few pears and the Liberty apples for some snacks. Dang figs are slacking. I guess I need some earlier varieties. Not a single ripe one yet. I have a big void/lack of fruit in June other than blackberries.
I tried lifting the pears 90 degrees and they came off, seems to be a standard test. My figs aren’t ripe yet either, I’m growing Celeste, Alma, , Chicago Hardy, and Malta—seems late for figs
I am familiar with the original Tennosui seedling tree grown from a seed in Houston. Your pear has a shape that is consistent with the many ripe pears that I saw there on the tree. Once ripe, the peeling was all tan/brownish, and the flesh was bright white and crispy when sliced like a chip. After cutting the fruit open, the flesh remained white for a day or longer rather than start to turn brown as it oxidizes. I would be very happy to have pear trees as thick, healthy, and branchy as yours. Strategically pruned for optimum production is not everyone’s preference. As years go by, some overloaded branches could break off, or a big storm could “prune” it for you. Night visiting fat coons could tip the scale and help break off branches.At times the original tree did get Fireblight that traveled down a foot or so from the tips, which would then need pruning by you anyway. One wet year I saw that Many tips had about a foot of FB affected tips. I vote Keep 'Em. Just feet away from the Tennosui discovery tree is it’s seedling sister named Southern King, which is a green Euro type that is also well worth growing. A whole bunch of seeds had been planted at the same time in hopes of coming up with a better tree. It worked.
Hi Fruitilty, glad to meet a Tennoshui expert! Here in Dallas my Dave Wilson Tennoshui on OHF333 seems very similar to Hosui. It’s a young tree, 3rd leaf, gave me a dozen or so fruit. No FB yet, my Hosui I’ve had to trim out FB weekly. I don’t detect any Euro Pear taste, maybe I picked too soon.
Is Tennoshui popular due to its fb resistance and precocity? Is it supposed to taste like Hosui?
Bhawkins- I sure am no expert, but have some history with the Tennosui. I listened to some local fruit folks explain to gathered backyard growers how the Harris County (Houston) Ag. Extension Service folks decided to plant 200 (?) Tennessee pear seeds in hopes of coming up with a better fruit tree, and in the local trial orchard there was a Hosui tree. They think that the bees helped mix in Hosui info into a Tennessee flower, and the resulting combo is the grandpa of your grafted tree. I suppose that your fruit ended up being like a modified Hosui pear. Asian. The discovery tree can really load up with a BUNCH of 3" + diameter golden/tan fruit. That it can get a few to a lot of 1 foot long FB infected branches is more bothersome than fatal. Frequent rain in Spring, high humidity, lots of bugs with dirty feet. However, even with that FB incubator environment, FB does not have to occur in the Tennosui. Since May 1 there have been 10 rain events here totaling 21" of rain, and my 9 trees with all Tennosui or part Tennosui grafted branches show zero FB today. That works for me. Since I started them in 2010, there never has been any “bad” FB infection in them, even though I noticed FB in some neighbors’ pear trees in some years. I topworked many pear trees to get away from any FB issues, and it has been a great long term idea. If I had your Hosui, I would have topworked it with some other variety like Acres Home, which also flowers when the Tennosui flowers, and it makes a good Euro pear…FB free. I suppose that your tree’s fruit gets a reddish blush where the direct Sunlight hits them, a common thing with the Tenn.
