We planted a grafted Pear tree with 5 varieties in the same tree next to 4 ornamental pear trees, probably Cleveland type. We have not got any fruits from the grafted one since planting it, which was years ago.
Theoretically the fruiting one should pollinate itself correct?
Do the ornamentals pollinate the fruiting one with and prevent it from fruiting?
Thank you.
It will most likely pollinate itself but yes ornamental pears can pollinate it in most cases. As long as blooms overlap and the pear blooms are fertile eg. diploids. In some cases eg. Bartlett aka williams in some areas eg. California no pollination is needed.
The fruiting one gets pollinated but the bulbs never grow into fruits. What is happening here? If the ornamental pollinates it, will they not grow into fruits like this?
Do all 5 of the grafted varieties flower but not set fruit?
Whole tree flowers. None set fruit.
I think if the ornamental pear was not compatible, which like clark says it usually is the plant would select the compatible and available pollen from the other fruiting pears and set a crop. Maybe you could explain your environmental conditions after they set fruit, Like are they dry or super wet, is it extremely hot or windy maybe something else is going on. Also what rootstock is your pears on? This definitely would be on someone else to answer but more info helps.
It is a little over 20ft tall. The ornamentals are probably around 25ft tall. All within 15ft of each other.
Central Texas. It is hot, but not that hot when they are flowering. It gets windy here. The winds knock all the plums off. Every once in a while a very large thunderstorm roles through.
Not sure about rootstock. I read that if the flowers dont get pollinated they will still swell a little but then fall off. Mine swell to the size of chickpeas maybe and never get any larger. Could this be what is happening? Maybe they aren’t getting pollinated at all.
Don’t have a complete answer for you, but I can tell you that pollinated pears never “color up”, i.e., they stay pale and almost translucent. They will drop spontaneously or can be helped along with just a touch. But pollinated pears quickly start to get color and size, and their stems are robust and colored. They resist pressure and hold on to the tree and the fruit.
Mine stay tiny and green with no color.
I’ll bet that if you flick them with your finger tip they’ll fall right off. And if so, they never got pollinated.
How’s your bug population? And do your five pears bloom more or less at the same time? If you look up the different varieties you can see whether they are likely to be blooming at the right time for one another. https://www.grandpasorchard.com/page/_ccLib/attachments/about/GOWeb-Pollination-Pear-EUROPEAN+(2013).pdf
Pretty much blume same time. I don’t remember the varieties. I will pay attention more next year and maybe try to manually pollinate. Bugs aren’t too bad. We keep it pretty well under control.
I wonder if you have enough bees and small wasps to do the manual labor of pollinating. Do you see much activity?
How many years has this happened? It certainly sounds like they did not get pollinated
Plenty of bees and pollinators.
Tried tugging on them and it was on there pretty good you can see it broke off further up the stem.
This is pictures of the leaf and bulbs from the fruiting tree.
Those two pears are pollinated. Are there any bite marks, little black spots, on them? You might have to look closely, and you might have to look into the blossom end. If you don’t see anything, slice them up with a razor blade and see if there is anything inside - a dark streak, perhaps, or even a tiny worm. You’ll have to slice a couple, probably. If you find something, that could be the problem, as trees tend to reject fruit is damaged by insect larvae.
After researching the internet it looks just like Callery fruit to me. It is green with little brownish hairs. Here it is cut in half. I cut three all same. I
t was pretty tough to cut with razor blade. Much harder than i expected. I saw no indications of bugs.
