Last year was a very heavy crop of pears due to heavy rains. This year a few trees are loaded with buds though for the most part the crop looks light. How are your trees budding up?
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It’s a little early to tell right at the moment, but I’m guardedly optimistic. The Little Yellow Pear you sent me two years ago should spur up next year if not sooner - I’m excited to try it! But right now everything except the crocuses is still pretty quiet. Garlic is still hiding beneath the mulch, but you can see it if you look down.
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I see there will be heavy fruit set on some ayers, a drippin honey, douglas. Lots of light fruit set on everything else.
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Opposite year to me, Clark. Last year, my Asian pears had light crop. E pears yielded moderately. Apples were 90% down. Only E plums and peaches had good crops.
Not surprising that this year A pears have a lot of flower buds. So do apples and E pears.
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You have Pears setting already? My Pears are still blooming, except for Drippin Honey and Korean Giant, they haven’t opened up yet.
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I have a good bloom this year, only a couple are not blooming well. Here blooms pretty much always translates to set on pears.
I finally after 18 years have some flower buds on my Josephine des Malines! I almost chopped it down this winter but a couple buds looked a little too fat so I held off.
Last year was the off year for me as well, about half the Euros did not set well. All the Asians usually set well for me, except Hosui. But this year even Hosui looks good.
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You are ahead of me! @clarkinks Mine are just budding out right now! Hopefully I get several flowers but you never know…
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If I have more than 3 pears this year it’ll beat last year. I was checking out some football shaped flower buds on my Ayers thinking/ hoping they are flower buds. But they are budding out now and it looks like they are all leaf no flowers. Sad about that. But Harrow Sweet is a champ and putting out so many flower buds. So I’ll have few HS for sure. Also Korean Giant and few Chojuro. Very excited for this year.
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Sorry for the poor wording everyone when i say that im speaking about what will happen based off buds. These ts hardy shown below will set fruit
Have lots of vegetative growth on many pears that will not set fruit. Largely vegetative growth was due to branch breakage last year. The heavy fruit set my pears had in 2019 are causing the pears to rebel this year sending out branches. Lots of interesting pears eg. Abate fetel, forelle, dana hovey etc. Loaded up with buds. It was 20 here last night which is cold for lows this time of year.
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Might get some off the rescued combo pear. Don’t know which variety it is but the dominant graft looks like a decent set considering the hacking I gave it this winter.
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My Hosui looks good this year too. The rest of my pears were planted this year so I should have a while to go with them…
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Good luck with the Josephine!
I don’t have pictures right now, but our pear trees will be absolutely loaded if nothing too bad gets in the way. Lots of trees that have never flowered before have flower buds. I’m especially looking forward to some rare heirloom varieties like the Muotathaler Heulampe ( a early pear from central Switzerland) or the Schafbirne.
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Looks like a good pear year assuming decent weather continues. I have a heavy set of Kieffer (improved), Golden Boy, and a few Orient. Korean Giant is heavy with blooms as well as Harrow Sweet. Last year KG was our household favorite. I past on a few to none family members and they all commented about them being the best pear they ever had. I grafted in several more varieties last year and was surprised that none of these bloomed. Hope to add several more next year to my fruited list.
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It will likely be at least 5-6 weeks before I have any idea of what my fruit crop will look like this year.
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I have plenty of flower buds this year. The trees were well fertilized, and thinned last year. I’ll surely have to thin a lot this year. They also all get 8-12 hours of sunlight daily, which probably helps. Hopefully no late frost wipes them all out. They should bloom in a couple weeks.
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Same here. Hope this year plum, and peaches will have a good crop!
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The earliest branch on the Louise is already blooming:
Giffards Butterbirne is starting to bloom too:
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Provided we don’t get any killing frosts, we ought to be getting fruit from three of our pear trees. The other two are still too small to bear, even though one of them (Harrow Sweet) has what looks like fruit buds on it.
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Ah yes, provided we get no killing frosts, no drought, not too many pear-loving birds…growing fruit is the most addicting kind of gambling! 
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