Pruning for fruit bud formation

General Fruit Growing
#1

To All

I have been trying to prune to encourage fruit bud formation especially on my pears.

Being that mine are espaliers, I tried ro combine this effort with my summer pruning. I pruned ONE WEEK AGO on July 11 and the attached photos were taken today on July 18.

These show the reaction of different trees to my efforts

At least the trees seem healthy and spunky

To me the new growth looks vegatative. So my Q’s are:

  1. Is there a way to tell, at this early stage whether the growth is vegetative or fruit “bud-ive” (new word for the lexicon of fruit growing?)

  2. Can you tell from the photos if I pruned at the right spot. ?

I have many fruit spurs on the trees’scaffolds, but I would like to fill some areas that don"t.

As I said, I have have plenty of fruit spurs but am not sure that those developed because of or despite my efforts, :blush:

See examples below. Thanx

Mike

20210718_122455
20210718_1224551440×2560 652 KB

20210718_122342
20210718_1223421440×2560 651 KB

20210718_122257
20210718_1222571440×2560 715 KB

20210718_122003
20210718_1220031440×2560 582 KB

20210718_121718
20210718_1217181440×2560 546 KB
20210718_120057
20210718_1200571440×2560 528 KB

20210718_115602
20210718_1156021440×2560 604 KB

20210718_115742
20210718_1157421440×2560 712 KB

20210718_121622
20210718_1216221440×2560 587 KB

1 Like
#2

I believe pear flowers on 2 yr old or older spurs.
The new growth as at the top of first photo looks vegetative .
You can see a flower bud on the tip of that older spur in lower part of first photo.
I would not expect those new shoots to form flower buds until around this time next year. 2022 blooming in 2023

#3

I have some experience with summer pruning and think you will get a new round of vegetative growth this year. Keep pinching it back and you should get fruit buds. Whether they will fruit next year or later is unknown.