Hello, first post.
I have two pear trees close to each other. I live outside Philadelphia.
Every year the trees start to fruit. The fruit, still green, grows big and looks delicious. And then they fall off. Or the squirrels get them. Or both.
This year I invested in a pint of coyote urine. This appears to keep away the squirrels and groundhogs too.
However, why does my fruit fall off just as it gets ready to ripen? I’ve pounded fertilizer stakes into the ground and taken care of the trees. Never do I get pears I can eat.
Suggestions?
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Wecome, Timothy. You’re probably not seeing too much response to your post because people are pretty busy right now and they want to take the time to offer an adequate response. But when they find a moment they’ll probably show up this weekend, if your post doesn’t disappear in the bunch.
So to make sure it gets noted I’m just going to highlight @clarkinks, because he does a lot with pears; he’s not the only pear guy here, but he does seem to end up in just about every pear discussion!
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Timothy,
Are these Euro pears? You said your pear fruit grew big, looked delicious and dropped? Usually, fruit drop when they are very ripe.
Could it be that your pears are ripe but still green in color? Did they dropped on the ground or disaapeared?
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@mamuang makes the point 99% of pears no longer ripen on the tree but instead ripen inside after being picked. Falling off the tree does not mean they are ripe enough to eat yet but rather ripe enough to pick. To test if a pear is ripe enough to pick use the tilt test.Tilt the pear up gently and if it breaks off it’s ripe enough to bring inside but if not it’s not ripe enough to bring in. Some pears take a few days to ripen once inside and others take weeks. Spread the pears out on a table or in cardboard boxes.
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Might be worth mentioning that some pears will ripen better after refrigerating for a week-three.
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Thanks for the advice. I don’t know what kind of pears these are, but I didn’t think they might ripen after falling from the tree. I’ll try the “tilt” method when they grow large.
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I did get one pear from the tree that ripened. This is how the pears appeared in early July, when they all began to fall from the tree:
And this is how the only that went to full fruit appeared in August:
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That link doesn’t appear to be publicly available, only the admin.
Fixed it.
Nice pear! Depending on the type, you might stick that in the fridge for a while as Mark said to give it some chill as some pears do better with that, then set it out to table ripen. Some pears can just be set out right away. @clarkinks might recognize the type and give a suggestion.
Do you have pictures of the leaves?