@tonyOmahaz5
Those buds are perfect your still in really good shape. Ya li is blooming right now Tony so i wanted to thank you for that recommendation.
@subdood_ky_z6b
Thats a beautiful site! We can practically taste the pears those are going to produce! Nice work!
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No wonder you have so many pears each fall! 
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Thanks, we’ll see, but I think the tree is still too small to grow a lot of pears. If it does, would I have to worry about runting it out?
I was showing the Doodette the blooming trees, and she said did I see that the Harrow Sweet pear blooms, so that’s another. But it’s way too small to allow those to fruit.
I notice a lot of your trees have a bunch of upright branches that are blooming. I was under the impression that fruit trees need lower angle branches or need them pulled down to induce fruiting. So, does that just apply to apples, or to pears as well?
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@subdood_ky_z6b They fruit faster if the branches are pulled down but i have plenty of pears so early fruiting is not a big deal for me i like a full sized tree. Some pears eg. Harrow sweet you cant hold back it fruits quickly! You will get a bunch of pears from that tree just dont let it break the branches! They wont completely runt out. My trees are older and eventually all pears fruit if your patient. My oldest pear i planted around 25 years ago. Great job on your pears! Thanks @mrsg47 not all the pear trees are in the photos! I dont want to say how many i have!
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@Derby42 asked the question earlier but it’s likely on a lot of peoples minds related to temperature damage to flower buds. The reason why it’s a good idea to spray copper prior to blossoms opening is it kills bacteria such as fireblight aka Erwinia amylovora but it also kills Pseudomonas syringae aka blossom blast which is the bacteria responsible for forming ice at higher temperatures that can damage flower buds. Here is an article that explains the process the bacteria use Bacterial Ice Nucleation: A Factor in Frost Injury to Plants “Heterogeneous ice nuclei are necessary, and the common epiphytic ice nucleation active (INA) bacteria Pseudomonas syringae van Hall and Erwinia herbicola (Löhnis) Dye are sufficient to incite frost injury to sensitive plants at −5°C. The ice nucleation activity of the bacteria occurs at the same temperatures at which frost injury to sensitive plants occurs in nature. Bacterial ice nucleation on leaves can be detected at about −2°C, whereas the leaves themselves, i.e. without INA bacteria, contain nuclei active only at much lower temperatures. The temperature at which injury to plants occurs is predictable on the basis of the ice nucleation activity of leaf discs, which in turn depends on the number and ice nucleation activity of their resident bacteria. Bacterial isolates which are able to incite injury to corn at −5°C are always active as ice nuclei at −5°C. INA bacteria incited frost injury to all of the species of sensitive plants tested.” Here is another article on blossom blast Bacterial blossom blast of pear - Integrated Pest Management
At first glance sometimes people misidentify blossom blast and think its fireblight.
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My espalier asian pear. Yea I know my top branches are way to long. But just cant bare to cut them back till I get some more growth.
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A Drippin’ Honey pear I bought from Gurney’s last year decided to blossom this year. I didn’t expect results this fast.
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Did your Clara Frijs bloom yetor has flower buds ?
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The buds are not open yet but they are close!
Nice looking fruitlets @k8tpayaso! My trees have a ways to go until they get to the fruitlet stage
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What rootstock do you have those on in the photo Clark. I keep thinking I need to cram some more ohxf 87 in between my current pear trees
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Clark,
Do you know if a size of a pear bud (before it blooms) correlates to a size of its fruit?
This is the first year Duchess set flower buds and they are huge. KG buds are also on a large size. Both produce large pears. Harrow Sweet flower buds are small. Its fruit are also on a small size.
Coincidence or correlation?
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Those are a callery that is a kind of a dwarf when grown in my soil. The callery is my go to so its used frequently. Still have a bunch of rootstock like that which is semi incompatible.
@mamuang your very observant! There is a correlation but there are also exceptions to the rules. You can tell alot by a pear flowers though and your right small flowers typically are small fruit. Here is another example where you can look in the flower and see pink and most pears have that pink except ts hardy which is white. Did you notice that @Derby42
Another really neat thing are king blossoms in apples which are the largest on the same tree in the center of the same cluster which you can tell by the bloom
"In apples, the flower in the center of the flower cluster is the oldest and most developed and will be the first flower to bloom. This central flower is called the king bloom and is the most desirable of the flowers in the cluster. The king bloom has the potential to be the largest fruit.
"
Back to pears for a minute there is an excellent diagram of a pear flower here http://beeaware.org.au/pollination/
I assume the pink part is the anthers of the flower. As i mentioned with ts hardy when ive looked at it those are white making the tree very easy to identify once it flowers!
Here is an example of an exception which is a crabapple i will use for rootstock. The apples are dime sized but so are the blooms. Im making crosses with the crabapple. Some pears are just like that. Most callery pear blooms are larger than the tiny pea sized pear.
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Yes my ts hardy is very white,
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Hi everybody, my name is Ruben I signed in to this forum but couldn’t figure it out how to place a post, commented on a post and more. I was invited by Richard and I been enjoying this place but like I said is just a little bit different and confuse for me but with everybody’s help I hope to get there! I live on the eastern shore of Virginia used to be usda zone 7b but recently I found out we are now in zone 8a, I had worked for produce companies on the past but I really enjoy growing my own vegetables, I just started getting some figs last year and this spring I planted some fruit trees but I wanted to know what varieties do best where I live based on on my zone also which ones taste the best.
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