Pruning Pear Trees
1. Start by downloading the PDF from Flemings Nursery and read the section on pears.
2. Download the "Training and Pruning Your Home Orchard" PDF from the Oregon State U, the U of Idaho, and Washington State U. joint fruit project. Read the general section on training and pruning then the section on pears.
3. Most home gardeners will use the central leader structure for their apples, pears, and European Plums. For a nice clear discussion and short video of training trees in the central leader structure go to the Stark Brothers Nursery site.
4. Go to the Washington State University tree fruit website and note that there are other competing training options to the central leader system. While there at that site, you can see that this is true for other kinds of fruit as well.
5. Go to You Tube and find "Pruning Bartlett Pear to Optimize Fruit Quality" by CAHNRS (Dr. Stefano Musacchi of WSU's horticulture department). At about 4 minutes into the video is a chart of 5 different types of fruit-bud patterns found in pears. The rest of the video is about how to prune a Bartlett pear given what we know about fruit-bud patterns in Bartletts.
6. Check out the Richard Bird's "Pruning Fruiting Plants" from the county library. Note that home gardeners using Richard Bird's pruning book are using training and pruning systems similar to those in the video.
7. Reconsider the training of the next pear you plant.
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2. Download the "Training and Pruning Your Home Orchard" PDF from the Oregon State U, the U of Idaho, and Washington State U. joint fruit project. Read the general section on training and pruning then the section on pears.
3. Most home gardeners will use the central leader structure for their apples, pears, and European Plums. For a nice clear discussion and short video of training trees in the central leader structure go to the Stark Brothers Nursery site.
4. Go to the Washington State University tree fruit website and note that there are other competing training options to the central leader system. While there at that site, you can see that this is true for other kinds of fruit as well.
5. Go to You Tube and find "Pruning Bartlett Pear to Optimize Fruit Quality" by CAHNRS (Dr. Stefano Musacchi of WSU's horticulture department). At about 4 minutes into the video is a chart of 5 different types of fruit-bud patterns found in pears. The rest of the video is about how to prune a Bartlett pear given what we know about fruit-bud patterns in Bartletts.
6. Check out the Richard Bird's "Pruning Fruiting Plants" from the county library. Note that home gardeners using Richard Bird's pruning book are using training and pruning systems similar to those in the video.
7. Reconsider the training of the next pear you plant.
.