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.

Blossom - Morettini

The first flowers of Morettini have just unfurled, heralding Spring! A sight to cheer the heart!

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.

More Codling Moth

No mystery about the source of the codling moth, the ancient cooking apple in the newly-acquired neighbouring garden is absolutely full of moth larvae. The fruit has not been picked or cleared for years.

A lot of the Morettini fruit has developed signs of infestation since being picked and stored, quite a significant percentage now. I'm not sure why it's taken so long for the infestation to build up on the other side of the fence, but now it has. I think the apples are less affected as most of them are quite strongly biennial, so over-wintering females have found no fruit to infest.

Lets dispel some myths about control. Most of my cordons are grown between regularly dug vegetable beds, this has made very little difference to the incidence of pests that spend part of their life cycle in the soil below. I also have chickens, and a very wide variety of wild birds that feed enthusiastically, which also has made little difference. I haven't tried any barrier methods of control (greasebands) yet, or pheromone traps, so this will be the first approach.

I might try the biological control, as there aren't many other fruit trees in the vicinity and I'm sure the main reservoir is probably the cooker next door. Pheromone traps are an option, but will catch some of the males, not enough to make a real difference, so their use would probably be only as a guide as to when to spray as a last resort.

RHS info on codling moth

crop: Morettini

The first windfalls made me think that the rest of the crop is ready to pick, though most of the early droppers were infected with codling moth which didn't help judge the timing.

In past years I've found timing picking quite critical; too early and they dry out before ripening, too late and the fruit is dry and prone to rot from the middle. I hope my timing is good this year as I have just picked the whole crop, a whopping 12kg (26 lbs) in one go. The reason for this is that, if allowed to ripen on the tree, they attract wasps in large number, which makes it impossible to pick the rest of the crop. I think I probably picked a tad too early, as a number shrivelled. Next year I think I'll leave a little later. 

I'd been expecting large losses from pear midge this year, but the spraying was obviously effective and I then forgot to thin, meaning that much of the fruit was very small. Nevertheless, the crop was still heavy enough to bend all the branches horizontal and it was a miracle none broke, especially with the strong winds we've had constantly for the last month. If a similar crop develops next year, I think thinning by 50 % would probably be advisable.

Pear Midge

Morettini is the most precocious pear, so it is hardly surprising that it is the earliest to show signs of pear midge damage, despite my spraying experiment. This variety actually blooms over a long period relatively, and the very first ones to set ('king' fruitlets) are now clearly affected. I didn't spray until 100 % petal loss, so these first fruits would not have been protected anyway. I suspect the exercise will prove ineffective anway. Picking off distorted fruitlets will be another daily task from now on.

Pear midge - Morettini

The blossom dropped very suddenly on the Morettini standard, so I decided to try an experimental treatment for pear midgel. This tree was very badly affected last year and is fairly isolated from others, so it should be easier to assess if spraying for adult midges has any effect. Fortunately the wind was low yesterday and as soon as the derris spray hit the foliage a cloud of midges flew up. Unfortunately the same thing happened when I tried spraying again today, suggesting the insecticide isn't really having a deterrent effect. I went back later to see if I could retrieve any dead midges for identification, but the one I found managed to fly out of my grasp. So I'm not holding out much hope for the effectiveness of spraying. I probably should have started a day earlier too, as the midges were clearing active before full petal drop, given the large number that had already arrived.

Blossom - Beurré precoce de Morettini

Buds were an apple-blossom pink, but open to ice white. Flowers opened  10 days later than last year, which was also a cold, late spring.

Evaluation: Morettini

A couple of fruit picked straight from the tree. Much riper than the first picking. The redder one was quite sweet and slightly buttery; the other a bit thinner and more astringent (by which I mean has more tannins). The fruit are an attractive shape and colour, very regular in shape and have very few blemishes to the skin of any kind. 

Flavour

Melting, sweet juicy, fine-texured with a thin skin and no trace of grit. More acidity than some, very evident if compared with Beth. Best eaten while slightly hard, with still traces of green still evident, as flavour falls off fairly quickly at full ripeness. One of the best varieties I grow for cooking (light poaching) probably because of the mild acidity; similar in cooked flavour/texture to Williams/Bartlett. 

8 foot tall half standard tree, grafted 2001 - 2:

7.5 kg picked

2 kg approx lost to wasps.

Total 10 kg approx, 21 lbs

Tree qualities - fairly vigourous, compact grow, resistant to scab and heavy cropping. However, flowering can be confused, with buds sometimes opening as early as December if the weather is too mild.

Wasps

I've never really had any problems with wasps before, largely because I watch my fruit ripening like a hawk and whip it off the moment I think it's ready (or just before). Consequently the wasps have rarely had an opportunity. In fact, I was struck that numbers were unusually low in 2008 and 2007.

Having had to leave fruit ripening on the tree while I was away, they have now reappeared in swarm proportions with a vengeance. I'm sure there will be complaints if I don't do something, as this tree is dropping wasp-covered fruit on the pavement. They are extremely efficient at eating whole fruits, sometimes excavating away leaving just the skin like a deflated balloon.

I managed to pick about a kilo of Morettini today before giving up. I don't have a great fear of wasps, having been covered by them many time while picking blackberries very early in my youth and never stung, but the risk of grasping one while picking was too great. I returned after dark tonight to clear up fallen/rotten ones, and pick the remainder of the crop. Even so, quite a few wasps were still crawling around, still inebriated from gorging on the fruit.

Crop: Morettini

I did manage to pop home from Wales for a few hours in the last week of July. The first crop to be ready was Morettini, which were yellowing slightly and parting easily from the spurs. I picked a couple of kilos to take home. The desert quality wasn't great, they were quite astringent for eating raw, but were perfect for poaching after about a week. Despite the brief heat-wave in June, I suspect they simply haven't had enough sun to ripen adequately. Desert quality has been good in previous years, sweet and lightly buttery but not this year. Yields were very good, but by the middle of August wasps had destroyed a good percentage of the crop (see next post).

Morettini: set

After losing such a large percentage of the crop to pear midge, I'm relieved to see there is still a fairly decent crop remaining. I found only one blackened fruitlet that the midge larvae had vacated, though this will still probably result in enough adults to ensure a bad attack again next year. I will hoe underneath regularly as an extra measure.

More Pear Midge

More bad news on pear midge infestation. I got a stepladder to investigate the top of my half-standard Morettini and found an even greater number of infected fruitlets at the top of the tree. This tree did not set any fruit last year as it flowered in January, so the midges that infected it must have travelled a fair distance.

I also found infected fruitlets on Winter Nelis, Sucrée de Montluçon and Fondante d'Automne which showed no outward symptoms other than looking slightly dehydrated (example far left). I would not have detected any on Winter Nelis if I hadn't carried out random checks. Round/conical varieties don't seem to change shape or size as greatly as the pyriform/calabasse types do in reaction to the larvae.

Morettini: set

In contrast, Morettini rarely sets more than a couple of fruits per spur (this difference between fertilised fruitlets and sterile ones is obvious very early as the second photograph shows). I don't know whether this is due to poor pollination (being the first to flower) or whether it is just a quirk of the variety. I suspect the latter, as the cordons in the main garden are all very well synchronised for overlapping pollinators, and a couple of the varieties are still apt to only set a single fruit per spur too. Curiously, it seems to be mostly the ones with a bergamot shape; the majority of the pyriform cultivars tend to set a full spur, though a varying number later drop. I will have to keep an eye on them, as this is one of the varieties that has been most prone to pear midge in the past.

Beurré Precoce de Morettini: Blossom

Morettini is a Canadian cultivar, and the first to flower in my garden. It's precocity can be something of a nuisance; in mild winters it often starts to break bud in December, though several flushes follow on, sometimes into June. I suspect this trait might make it susceptible to fireblight, but so far so good. This year it was well-behaved, and the first flowers opened on 29 March, just ahead of the neighbouring early cultivars. Full bloom by April 5 and loosing petals by April 9 after some stiff winds.

Morettini has compact upright growth, and spurs very freely, producing attractive rounded panicles.

Early Blossom

Few people would consider growing pears for the blossom alone, but a few varieties are well worth including.

When I decided to fill my front garden with early/late varieties to extend the season, by chance I selected a number of varieties that were very early to bloom and very beautiful.

The photo shows Beurré Precose de Morettini.