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.

Today's pickings

Total 4 boxes. Smaller quanitities (1-2kg) of Ellison's Orange, Sunset and Egremont. Very disappointing yields from apple cordons. I need to do something to reduce vigour, I might start with root pruning.

Crop: Conference

Decided to pick the remaining mid-season pears today, as the squirrel damage was getting out of hand.

I weighed today's picking of Conference which came to about 10.5 kgs. Including the ones that have been eaten already, or discarded because of damage, the whole crop from this double cordon was about 12 kg in total, about 26 lbs. Far more than we can eat, my husband will have to take some with him on his weekly egg round.

Crop: Conference

The combination of a heavy crop and non-stop gales for the last few weeks has taken a real toll on the Conference/Concorde cordons, which now have an oblique shape in two dimensions. The stakes have been loosened, and I will probably have to replace/extend them in addition to the bamboo lattice. Either that or make the cordon lower which I'd prefer not to have to do, as the top branches of the current arrangement get rather more direct sun than the lower ones.

Crop: Conference

As usual, a huge crop of Conference which the cordon can only barely support.

Pear: Conference

The Conference crop looks promising. 

Conference: crop

In spite of the early scab infection, the Conference cordon looks like it should have a good crop. The scab has only resulted in coarse russeting on the majority of fruitlets, though a few do have deeper cracks.

Pear Scab

As usual I'm kicking myself for not spraying for scab. Only a couple of pear varieties are usually affected, Conference and Santa Claus. The damage on the former (bottom) is usually just cosmetic, though last year all the Santa Claus were inedibly dry and corky.

more on pear scab

Conference: Blossom

Of the more familiar cultivars, Conference is probably the earliest, and has more generous blossom than some. It has a relatively long flowering period, so does overlap well with Comice and Concorde which I planted together with Beth as a double oblique cordon (which I've heard called a 'Belgian Fence').

Blossoms opened April 4th this year and tree in full flower by April 9th.