THE PERFECT PEAR: ANOTHER GREAT FOOD SOURCE FOR YOUR HUNTING PROPERTY
We all know that deer love apples. But having a variety of tree fruits available keeps the interest of deer and other wild animals. The pear tree offers your deer a tasty treat. They are one of the easiest fruit trees to grow, drought-tolerant, and a consistent producer.
PERFECT PEAR
Image by Picking out a pear tree requires identifying your planting zone, the chilling hour’s requirement and whether or not they are self-pollinators or need cross-pollination. A call to your local university extension will give you some great suggestions on a variety for planting, how to plant your trees and maintain your trees.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR COLD WEATHER REGIONS
- Luscious: large ornamental fruit tree producing smallish sweet yellow-green pears in fall, very showy white flowers in spring; one of the hardier pears, needs a pollinator, can be susceptible to fire blight
- Flemish Beauty: originated in Belgium, a very good quality eating pear, was at one time a leading commercial variety, the flesh is firm, aromatic, and tender as it ripens, the tree is hardy and strong growing but is susceptible to fire blight.
- Parker: compact and hardy, produces tasty medium-sized reddish-brown fruit in late summer, showy white flowers in spring; a great choice for the home orchard
- Nova: yield not very high, the fruit is large and attractive with red blush, ripens very early (end of July), is extremely prone to core rot, the fruit is flavorful, fine-textured, buttery and contains very few grit cells, appears to be fire blight resistant.
- Hudar: early and productive, yellow with sweet, juicy flesh, fruit size is a bit smaller than a Bartlett, the tree is self-pollinating.
As with all fruiting trees, you will want to identify that they are either self-pollinators or cross-pollinators. With cross-pollinating varieties, your trees will require a few other pear trees to be able to “cross” their pollen into other flowers on a different pear tree variety and reproduce. Obviously, you will need to buy more trees with cross-pollinators.
With self-pollination, a flower on the tree is able to take pollen from another flower on the same tree and reproduce. Our economic advantage lies in only needing just one tree for pollination but having several trees increase your fruit crop.
JUST CHILLIN’
While writing this article I ran into an interesting fact behind growing pear trees and getting the best fruit. Pears have a chilling requirement. WHAT?! Yes, you read that right. Pears have a chilling requirement. This chilling requirement will depend on where you live. The average pear tree requires between 800 and 1500 hours of chilling time. This chilling time begins once the leaves have fallen off and winter dormancy begins.
“Dr. David Byrne at Texas A&M University developed a method to estimate chill hour accumulation for locations throughout the Southeast based on average January temperatures. If the average January temperature is 59-63°, you live in a low-chill region. If the average January temperature is 48-58°, you live in a medium-chill region. January temperatures averaging below 48° indicate a high-chill region.” –QDMA ARTICLE “A GUIDE TO PLANTING PEARS FOR DEER” BY DAVID OSBORN
I live in the Upper Midwest and our January’s normally average around 27 degrees Fahrenheit. If I were to be planting pear trees, I would have to pick a variety that has a high chill requirement.
Early spring can definitely mess up your trees chill time. If you have a high chill tree variety and its chill time was shortened, the tree will most likely leaf out and produce little to no flowers, leaving you with few if any fruit.
PRUNING
The best time to prune pear trees is during their dormant months which are December, January, and part of February- January being the best month. The pruning helps stimulate growth and is helpful in correcting and shaping trees for heavy crop production. Once mature, pruning helps increase air circulation and even sun exposure to all the limbs.
Fruit trees are a wonderful addition to any hunting property, increasing the real estate value as well as your hunting success.
Resources:
- https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/pear/pears-that-grow-in-cold-winters.htm
- https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/
- https://www.qdma.com/guide-planting-pears-deer/
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316616996_Difference_Between_Self_and_Cross_Pollination
- https://plants.gertens.com/12070009/Plant/1217/Luscious_Pear/
- https://www.albemarleciderworks.com/orchard/pear/flemish-beauty
- http://uncommonfruit.cias.wisc.edu/european-pear/
- https://plants.gertens.com/12070009/Plant/3932/Parker_Pear/
- https://stlawrencenurseries.com/products/hudar-pear
- https://homeguides.sfgate.com/month-should-pear-trees-pruned-5
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