So in effort to be a dutiful pruner and encourage development of thick scaffold branches, I have engaged in some tipping or heading of branches, cutting them back 30 or 50% or so, at an appropriate outward facing bud.
However it seems almost as often as not the trees seem to stop growing, either developing a fruiting spur or just stopping vegetative growth entirely at the branch end.
This has occured on both my summercrisp and juicy jewel, but has not happened on a 100% European pear.
Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter from the pear experts. I’m starting to get pretty reluctant to make any heading cuts at all, only doing thinning cuts, but I’m also worried some of the scaffold branches may end up too long and spindly.
Vegetative growth usually only stops when the tree has run out of vigor. As when it turns dry or it’s time to shut down for winter. If the tree is in a vegetative mode, ie growing vigorously, then heading back should result in further growth.
They’re young so I’m still just trying to establish structure and not worry too much about fruiting. So if I’m selecting primary scaffolds I want them to keep growing.
The summercrisp did continue growing this year from the pruned branches in question, but it didn’t really grow at all from them last year. You can see the funny junction that resulted in this photo
Pruning pears tends to make them do the opposite of what you think they will do. Im going to do my best to give you a new perspective. You are fighting the pear because of what you think it should do. Pears are not apples. Genetics is everything and when you touch a branch on a pear it usually ends badly. Unless there is a crossed branch, etc. Dont prune at all if you dont need to. Imagine you are the pear tree and grazing animals keep biting off your limbs. Genetics says, “Put on twice as much growth and grow really tall really fast.” Get these deer and people that can reach my branches off of me. Once i get taller and have 3 year old branches, i will think about fruiting. At the moment, i need to put all my energy into vegetative growth. This place is filled with herbivores! You cut a branch it grows 3x as fast. As @fruitnut said give the tree its space to put on vegetative growth. Help it along give it some fertilizer like 13 - 13 - 13. As you mentioned gently shape it but remember pear shape is never ideal. Every time you cut off a branch your losing future pears.
In my limited experience with pear pruning versus apple pruning pear is that a lot of pears will just keep trying to grow longer/taller on the current year’s growth no matter what. Apples if you prune a branch with mature buds on it you may get lateral branches or spur formation in a couple weeks, particularly later in the season. With pears a new apical bud breaks and the tree just just keeps on growing, usually straight up. The pear tree will just refuse to grow laterals/spurs until after Winter dormancy the next year.
So it sounds like what you guys are saying (which matches everything I’ve read, also) is the opposite of what I’m experiencing. A couple of mine are seeming to get discouraged by the pruning, rather than continuing to push apical growth.
But this reluctance to grow past heading cuts happened in each of their first year after planting - the summercrisp last year and the juicy jewel this year. So I’m willing to chalk it up to the tree just being a little less robust after the transplant.
Either way, it sounds like my growing reluctance to make heading cuts is well-founded. Appreciate the advice.
Pears tend to produce vertical shoots when limbs are bent close to horizontal. I haven’t noticed any additional branching by just bending a pear limb. Bud notching helps with branching.
