Disasterous rainfall

Morettini

The non-stop rainfall we have been experiencing for the last couple of months has had a disasterous effect on the pears. Cultivars that are usually fairly robust and reliable have been affected by scab for the first time, and pollenation has been very low. Morettini is usually very healthy in growth, but nearly every fruitlet is completely covered with deep scab lesions. Beth is affected in both leaf and fruit, Winter Nelis and Josephine de Malines don't have a single fertilised fruitlet on the whole tree. Fondante d'Automne has just a couple that I could find. By contrast, Bishop's Thumb, Comice and Conference so far have bumper numbers of fruitlets, but overall I think it will be a very bad year for pears at least. A lot of the apple blossom was by contrast spoiled by unseasonably hard frosts but so far the fruit seems to have set. Fingers crossed that the season isn't an entire washout.

Beth/Morettini windfalls

Enormously surprised to find Beth crop starting to yellow and fall so early. This is still July for Heaven's sake! Ate the first one, not great quality, dry, little juice, none of the usual buttery quality, due to poor sun levels and leaving too long on tree. Picked all those with signs of yellow - 1.8 kg picked so far.

Decided to pick the whole crop a couple of days later, the additional crop was a further 2kg, meaning the total was a bare 4kg. Last year was a bit better 5kg, but way short of the 7 kg in 2009.

The Morettini were also starting to fall, creating a wasp hazard on the pavement outside, so I decided to pick any that were a decent size or flushed. These weighed in at 4kg. Flavour has been poor, due to lack of sun. Will be interesting to see of the ones left on the tree improve in the few days of sunshine.

Crop: Beth

Terrible storms this week meant that we lost a sizeable percentage of the Beth crop as windfalls. I should have noticed that one or two had started yellowing on the tree, and a kilo or two ended up on the ground as wasp food. If I'd checked last years records I would have seen they were ready exactly the same time as last year. I picked the remainder yesterday, the crop weighed in around 5kg - about 7kg /15 lbs total, remarkably consistent with last year's crop. The local shop took a tray, will be interesting to see if it's worth supplying fruit on an ongoing basis. Fruit quality was a tad disappointing this year to be honest, lacking the usual intensity and sweetness.

Foliage Colour: Beth/Gorham

One of the many qualities of pears I prefer to those of apples is their ability to colour nicely in Autumn. Not all are as good as others, so I'll just pick out those that are better than average.

Beth goes a nice shade of buttery yellow, but this year has been out done by the scion of Gorham I grafted on, shown on the top photo. If you look at the other one, the limb of Gorham is the top right oblique limb; the next one along is a full cordon of Beth, which is a little behind on colouring (the shape is a sort of bent Y, as a full double V wasn't possible a the end of the line). The other cordons are Conference, Concorde and Comice, in that order, which haven't started to fall or colour at all yet.

Evaluation: Beth

Returned from my father's funeral in Wales to find nearly half of the remaining Beth crop had fallen, though many were still edible after the wasp-nibbled bits had been removed. Including the fallen ones, the remaining crop weighed 4 kilos (8 lbs), giving a total crop of  7 kg (15 lbs) for what is a single cordon (the other limb is given over to Goreham).

8 foot oblique cordon, on Quince C planted 1998.

7 kg (15 lbs) ripening over 2-3 weeks

Growth habit very compact and free-spurring.

Disease free with good autumn foliage colour (yellow).

Flavour and texture are good; thin-skinned, juicy, sweet and slightly buttery. Acid levels are low, helping the sweetness, though probably making it slightly less flavoursome as an early culinary pear. Keeping qualities are average for an early variety, that is you have a couple of days of grace once they have turned yellow.

Crop: Beth

Rather surprisingly, we ate our first ripe windfall Beth in the last week July. A few more have either fallen or yellowed and parted easily from the spur. Usually I'd say the first ones drop a couple of weeks later.

I decided to pick all the ones that looked 'ready'. That is showing faint signs of yellowing on the surface exposed to sun, and which part easily and cleanly. About 3kg picked so far. Fruit size is very good this year and so far the wasps haven't taken an interest.

Beth: crop

A good crop on Beth this year, having been very light for the last couple of years, rather inexplicably. Lots of healthy looking spurs like this one.