Hey ya’ll,
These are pictures of my asian pear tree. I need some tips on pruning it in the winter since it looks overgrown and I want to keep it healthy and productive. Also the leaves have these black/orangish dots on it and some of the fruits have these disgusting orange spikey infected on it. Anyone know what it is and how to treat it?
IMG_9068-min (1).pdf (2.2 MB)
IMG_9069-min.pdf (2.2 MB)
I haven’t seen the photos because they are pdfs from an unknown source, but the descriptions of disease problems point to the possibility of Pear Trellis Rust, which is caused by a fungus that needs both pear and juniper trees as hosts. There is lots of information about it on the Web. Fortunately, I’ve found that my Hosui Asian pear tree, with Twentieth Century grafted onto it, is not nearly as susceptible to this disease as European pear trees. I see scattered spots of black/orange on it, but growth and production do not seem to be affected.
My biggest task for pruning is a constant battle to remove all of the vertical new growth that appears during the growing season as soon as I can. I only leave some of the few horizontal new shoots to fill in empty spaces. Winter pruning is just a matter of thinning out clutter.
I don’t know about your location, but where I am in the Pacific Northwest blossom blight of some sort is a constant problem. If I don’t spray with copper in the spring, all of the Hosui blossoms will turn black and fall off - no crop. Twentieth Century seems fairly resisitant.