The wages of sin

General Fruit Growing
#1

can be broken down trees and disappointment.

I have a 35 year old Parker Pear. Parker is very vigorous, and this one is in very fertile Iowa soil. I’ve struggled for years with endless watersprouts, and because of my very busy work schedule, settled for annual dormant pruning of them, never managing to keep them knocked off during the growing season. Alas, as all good orchardists know, that leads to large burls on the tops of your branches.

Beautiful, heavy crop this year, followed by:

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Lost three scaffold branches this way this year in a 24 hour period. Folks, don’t do this to your trees. Sucker burls kill!

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#2

Pears are very brittle ,hard but low in strength wood and should not have out reaching limbs.

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#3

It will be OK long term.

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#4

At least if it is a vigorous tree you should be able to replace your scaffolds! Sorry for your loss… But every broken thing (not just trees) can be used as a learning experience to improve for the next time.

It is nice of you to post a failure as many also post success, as others might not make the same mistakes.

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#5

Of course. I’ve rehabilitated quite a few other trees over the years and have dozens in my own orchard now. I was posting to show others the problems that can come from poor choices in management made a long time ago.

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