Asian pears

[Dwayne]

I have an Asian pear tree that produced fruit this year for the first time. It only had about 25 pears, and approx 8 of them had to be picked early because of a worm or bug of some type getting into the pear. I kind of figured it was the same problem that happens to apples that haven't been sprayed early in the spring.

I mentioned this problem to a lady from Korea that was passing through the state, and she told me that I should wrap the pears in paper while they were still on the tree. She saw this happening when she still lived in Korea.

Do any of you have any experience with growing Asian pears? Do I wrap them, when they are very small, or wait until they have reached nearly full size? Can I put zip lock bags on them instead of tying paper around them? Does this keep bugs out of them, or just keep them from becoming bruised?

If anyone has these answers, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Dwayne

[sherwindu]

You have two courses of action. One is spraying on a regular schedule, depending on what critters are attacking the pears. The other is covering them. I did extensive covering of my apples and my sole Seckel Pear tree with zip lock bags, with good

results. Some bugs slipped in at the stems, so another choice would be ordinary

sandwich bags with twist ties. My strategy was to spray early with dormant oil and later fungicide and pesticide up to petal opening. After petal fall, I sprayed once more with insecticide and fungicide and immediately covered the very small fruit with the zip lock bags. It's a labor intensive job, but it saves you additional spraying. I'm almost sure this will be applicable to asian pears, as well.

Sherwin

Dwayne wrote:

[Dwayne]

Thank you. Since doing this post, I have learned that some growers also cover their apples and plums.

Do you use the sandwich zip lock bags, or larger ones? Do they blow off the tree easily, or not? I think if I would zip lock them and then staple them tightly at that point, I might overcome a lot of those problems. Any more advice would be welcomed. Thank you again.

Dwayne