I find one photo online that looks like this; it’s in a forum and no one has an answer. Is it just Autumn change of color…in July (when it started)? It’s getting very pronounced. Sigh…steep learning curve this first year.
I have never gotten overly concerned about that condition. My Kieffers show it on the new growth most often, but they are actually become a normal green color by the time the shoot pushes the next leaves as the branch or leader grows.
Hi
You don’t say what type of pears they are. All I can tell you is that my moonglow pear leaves always turn a redish color like that at this time of year. Also my red anjou and red bartlett have red in their leaves but that is expected with them. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.
OK…I was wondering about some seasonal thing because it started happening on the south side of the trees (this is Seckel, another is Comice). T C T mentioned new growth and I saw something like that on my plum and pluot, but this is on mature leaves. I freaked out about it then, too, because the leaves and branches were so wimpy, but they perked up just fine. This first year of real growth everything seems strange. Thanks.
It is happening again…on a different tree. This is a 4-in-1 from a big box store…it is evident that different cultivars have different amounts of change. It is third leaf for this one (for me). This condition starts in mid-Summer. My other 4 pear trees don’t have it…two the same age (one had it two years ago…the one shown above) and two second leaf. I’m asking again because it just looks wrong.
Hi Seedy, I’m not familiar with your weather out there, but could drought or water stress be playing a part in these?
My trees have been going dormant already this year because of drought and changing that color. That could be part of it.
Yes, Steve and Insteng…this is a possibility, not because I don’t water it but because it has a very small vole cage around the roots and a lot of vole activity in the area…I’m concerned that it is unable to grow sufficient roots. It is in a challenging area water-drainage-wise but I’ve tried to make up for that. I’ve wondered about the root problem all along. Not only would that reduce the water uptake but also the nutrient uptake.
I’m open for more ideas, but I think this is a good speculation. I may dig around it a bit to do some investigating, though I’d like to wait until the dormant season…maybe a little of both. We’ll see…thanks!
If it is vole or other underground rodent related, putting out poison bait around now (and thru the year) does help. I had trees which would fall over during the winter/spring from voles and gophers eating their roots for their winter food supply as well as ones that just did poorly. A consistent program of putting out “gopher bait” has mostly cured the problem. But you need to keep it up, because one the first wave of them are gone, others will move in to take their place.
I actually became the gopher whisperer here, but I was whispering, ‘Get Out’…bwaaahahaha. I learned to trap them 'til I trapped them all. Voles are another story…I have planted all my trees in vole-proof cylinders of 1/2" hardware cloth but now that the trees are getting bigger the voles have figured out that the roots are growing out further (which the trees now need) and thus, especially on my earlier, smaller-diameter cylinders the trees are being crippled by vole damage. The bait that I have found effective, Terad3 - Cholecalciferol, for voles is expensive (and unavailable [?] now in pellet form). I’ll have to find another bait or ?
1 Like
You’ve had more success with gopher trapping than I. I generally find that the first setting of a trap works, and after that they are wise to the traps. Pellets (grain of some sort with anti-coagulant or strychnine) seems to work fairly well for me. I don’t like using the more persistent poison, but it seems that the warfarin based ones loose their effectiveness every so often. It also seems here that the voles eat the gopher bait and it takes care of both.
OK…good reminder to me: find less expensive bait and switch it up. I’ve never used warfarin/anti-coagulants for fear of poisoning predators up the food chain. I’ve heard that that those poisons might lose their effectiveness but I thought it was because of accumulated resistance. I should look into this further because I’m seeing more and more problems from voles, plus I just planted 3 fig trees w/o hardware cloth protectors…in a known bad vole neighborhood…dang.