Our 6 year old pear tree had a beautiful blooming period this year, but now it seems not to be thriving. Not many leaves and some yellowing now. I put in 2 fertilizer stakes at the drip line 90 degrees apart this year and now I am wondering if I should not have. Any help would be appreciated. We had a dry spring here inthe twin cities but I been making sure to water regularly. Leaves seem to be curling widthwise but not discolored or spotted.
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How has the rain been? Trees will forgive a lot if they get enough water. A common problem (not saying that this is you) is when people improperly water trees, not enough water, not in a way that it just runs off, you dig down and the water only penetrated a few inches, safe from the tree roots.
Don,
Thank you for your response. So we had rain early in spring but we are now in drought which is very unusual for this region. The spring was cold until may and we were having trouble getting out of the 50s. Now we are constantly hitting 90s. I deep water the tree about an hour every other day with hose attached to a bubbler. We have younger trees than the pear so I deep water to keep the ground moist. I can send more pics of the tree, but the forum was only allowing me to attach one on my first post.
Shawn
What’s your soil composition? That sounds like too much water and depending on what your soil is made of you may be drowning your tree.
On average 2 inches of water per week is all that is need, 1 inch would nicely put them in maintenance mode. it is easier to measure in inches because that’s how we measure rain. You can use the circumference of the tree drip line. For instance if your branches extend 8 feet from the trunk, a 16’ wide circle is about 200 square feet. One gallon of water is 1.6 inches on a square foot, so you would need 250 gallons of water for 2", or 125 gallons for 1" of water, maintenance mode.
Again, this is per week. 2 hours on a bubbler is probably exceeding that in a single day. If your soil leans towards clay it would compound the issue as the soil could never drain long enough to allow air to reach the roots.
Cut back on the watering to once a week. You could calculate the output of your bubbler by putting it in a 5 gallon bucket and seeing how fast it fills it. From there you can calculate how long you need it to leave it running.
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I will move to weekly watering and measure the output from the bubbler and see how it does. Thank you for everyone’s responses.
One of the pear that we adopted with our property is in a very muddy area fed by underground water/spring. Despite being in a swamp, my pear is not not dead (yet), but every year, it puts out half-heartedly very few small leaves, which looks similar to yours a bit.
For your tree, I agree with @don1357, you may be overwatering if you are giving “deep” watering every other day! 1 inch of rain per sq meter is about as much water a 5 gallon bucket holds. Not sure how many gallons you’re giving to your tree every other day. I have read (at least for E or SE US) that if it rains 1 inch, you don’t need to water for that whole week at least, and this is advice for for young 1st or 2nd leaf tree. Your tree looks like a bigger tree.
Also, are you able to see the “root flare”? If not, your tree roots may be deeply buried making it even more difficult to get some oxygen, on top of possible water logging. I would excavate some dirt around the trunk until you reach the root flare if you cannot see the root flare.
Pears really do not like overly wet soil.
I am cutting back the water to 2" a week. I should go ahead and get the soil analyzed. Has anyone heard of the Scotts Fruit Tree fertilzer stakes causing issues? I put two in as recommended for the trunk diameter and at the positions of 90 degree from each other.