Well, in my experience, not nearly as much as many other crops. You can get "decent" pears, albeit some with fungal lesions, some with worms, from a totally neglected tree. You will often see old trees growing around abandoned farms and homesites, and can usually find a pretty good percentage of usable fruit on them.

But, like anything else, you get out what you put in. If you put in the time, effort, and materials to spray them, you'll get a better crop.

And, as they say, your mileage may vary -- perhaps it's different in other parts of the country where there are different pests and diseases.

I used to think so but now I know better, as it applies here. They require less spray until certain pests arrive to any given site- of course I don't know if this always happens, but it has happened at my site but not at all the sites I manage. I get scab and pear psyla but certain varieties are not very susceptible. Magness seems pretty good in this regard.

Psyla and pear scab can be harder to manage than anything that attacks my apples.

I've abandoned most of my apples and all the stonefruits in my orchard in favor of pears. I spray NOTHING, and do almost no pruning.
Are 100% of my pears blemish-free? No, but they still produce nearly perfect fruits in such plenty that I have all I can eat and share with friends, and still end up drying some - and the critters get their share as well.
Worst thing I get are some dimples and hard stony spots, presumably from stinkbug feeding. If and when BMSB gets established, I may have to do something, but until then, only persimmons are less bothered than pears.

Bart, the BMSB is the curse of my asian pears, they can ruin the whole crop. I also have problems with curculio since I spray everything else with Surround and the curcs all go to the pears. So this year the pears get Surround as well. The BMSB also dislikes Surround so it will be a double win if I hit the pears with it. One other pest I need to spray for on my pears is pear leaf blister mite. You can just let that one go but it can stunt the growth and damage the fruit. I sprayed oil and lime-sulphur on the swelling buds a week ago to deal with that (I didn't get all of the trees since my tank ran dry; I am getting some damage on the trees I missed so will need to hit again).

Overall, you may get something without sprays, or maybe not.

Scott

Thanks folks, great information as usual!

I may do a little experiment this year and do my usual early season sprays and then bag half of each tree and see what happens to the other half.

I've never sprayed my Seckel.

I have a huge plum curculio population present. They come from the wild plums I found near my house (or so I would imagine since they love plums).

They sting the pears a little, but overall they turn out just fine.

Research from long ago has shown that PC larvae can not survive in pears, even if the pear drops. There are probably rare cases of them surviving, but compared to something like a plum or apricot, more less there isn't much damage other then cosmetic.

Bart - Please post when you have the results of your experiment. My orchard is just being installed so unfortunately I don't have much to add, but as it comes into the fruiting years I will be avidly reading the forum posts. I am hoping that management strategies for BMSB will be well-established by then . . .- lindsgarden

Frank, are you spraying your plums with a PC killer like imidan? I think my issue is Surround doesn't kill them and they get frustrated on the plums and fly over to the pears in desperation. If there are no apples peaches or plums nearby, or if you are using a imidan or similar for the PC, I expect that pears will probably do OK without any PC protection.

For the BMSB I did a lot of hand squishing last year and got an OK crop that way - about half the pears were ruined but the other half were OK. This year I purchased a few traps and will be experimenting with how they work. I don't like spraying Surround after May, the stuff is a mess to deal with.

Scott

Scott-

I sprayed Triacizide last season and had pretty good results, although once again I think I was a little late on some things, so had worms in various plums, cherries, peaches.

The previous year I was just not spraying the Alderman plum because the fruit is so so (IMO), so I let them at it...and they socked it good, while leaving my Surround sprayed fruits pretty much in good shape (that year I sprayed no pesticides other then Surround).

In your case you may want to leave a crappy tree open for them to attack? It may be worth it to reduce pressure on other fruits.

Here is the part about pears and PC:

"Fruits in which the larvse, fail to mature.�As already indicated, oviposition may occur in numerous fruits which are hardly fitted for the future development of the larvae. As will be shown under another caption (p. 56), there is a considerable mortality of eggs and larvae in all classes of fruit which do not fall to the ground; but in the case of pears, and doubtless the grape, huckleberry, persimmon, and similar fruits recorded as used for egg laying, the larvae would in most cases be unable to mature. This has been shown to be true in the case of the pear, the young fruit of which upon falling dries, becoming more or less flinty. Many hundreds of Kieffer, LeConte, Duchess and other varieties of pears have been collected, but in only a few cases were adults reared therefrom."

"Tests were made by Mr. Girault, May 17, 1905, in which 5 fruits each of plum, peach, quince, and pear were placed in jars and each supplied with 10 curculios. Upon examination, May 20, 72 hours later, results were as follows: On plum, the egg and feeding punctures were so abundant as practically to cover the whole surface of the fruit; on peach there were numerous punctures, but they were less abundant than on plum; on pear there were no punctures on fruit, but a few were on the fruit stems; on quince no punctures were seen on fruit, but a few were on fruit stems."

Bart,

Here in suburban MD near DC, I spray my pears (Asian and Seckel) with a lime-sulphur dormant oil combination before they leaf out. I do no other sprays for disease. They get a little bit of rot on the pears if we get a lot of rain, but apart from that I've had no problems.

PC will attack them, but just how much depends on what else is available for them. I have sprayed with Surround the last few years.

I have had problems with codling moth later in the season and the marmorated stink bug -- less so last year, but it was very bad the year before. So have been bagging my Asian pears (it is too much of a hassle to bag Seckel pears), but I find that it is not necessary to bag until they have reached a fairly decent size.

Last year my biggest problem was squirrels, which were grateful that I had pre-wrapped their pears and apples for them!

Around here 20-30% of unsprayed Euro pears are free of grubs at harvest. Here the main problem is coddling moth.

My own pears get blister mite if I don't treat for it. I use oil for it. The pears were close to tight cluster when I got the oil on this year (about 1&1/2 week ago).

Seems like most people report much better success with unsprayed pears, so this area is probably the exception.

Since everyone began spraying their pears I'm now allergic. Thanks for the rampant consumerism and lack of knowlege about nature. For thousands of years pear trees grew pears if you plant more trees you get more pears. If you provide a diverse habitat of other trees, plants that encourage critter eating bugs, brushwood mulch with herbs like lavender and thyme you get perfect pears. If you buy sprays you support the gmo industry, the defence industry 'who knew nitrates are in explosives and fertiliser' which you can reason to yourself if you have shares in that stuff. my 2pennies is I just want to eat a pear.

Case in point 'Gardeners in possession of the myclobutanil-containing products Systhane Fungus Fighter or Fungus Fighter Disease Control, which have been withdrawn and are no longer sold, can still use the products against labelled diseases (including apple scab and pear scab on edible crops) until the 30th November 2016. After this time it is no longer legal to use the products and any remaining stocks should be disposed of safely.'

Louise,

i do not know where to begin. Do not paint all backyard orchardists with the broad brush. Do you really think that if some fruit trees can be grown without any spray, people won't do it?

Besides the types of fruit trees, the varieties, the climate, etc. play important part in how successful you can be growing fruit trees without spraying.

I grew up eating the best fruit I ever tasted from completely neglected trees. so I know you can cultivate without spraying.

Where did you grow up? That makes a big difference in how much or how little spraying can be done. Also is it possible that the bugs people are spraying for today, weren't around when you were a kid? I know the BMStinkBug wasn't around even 10 years ago. Finally, do you have any evidence that your new allergy is cause by people spraying pear trees?

I ate some pears started sneezing and ' Systhane Fungus Fighter or Fungus Fighter Disease Control, which have been withdrawn and are no longer sold, can still use the products against labelled diseases (including apple scab and pear scab on edible crops) until the 30th November 2016.' . Didn't used to have it

Maybe you just have a cold. Not trying to be jerky, but it seems like you're making quite a leap. How do you know the pears you ate were sprayed with anything at all let alone those specific products? And how do you know other fruit you're eating wasn't sprayed with those products (and is not affecting you in any way)?

Louise Brookes, I suggest you buy some land and plant your own fully organic orchard and eat until your heart is content. You can sort through the fruit to find those that haven't been ravaged by disease or insects and eat your fill.

Lovely. suggestion. open invite for apple pie!

To combat erwinia I would liberally mulch the trees quartely with a woody herb mulch and a 2 cups of biochar at the base of each tree. I would wash susceptible areas with a spit or amylase based wash brewers yeast (ascomycetes and bacillus break it down) also works which breaks down the polysacchirides (carbs) protecting what essentually is a necrotising bacteriam. This is why old time grafters spat on their work as it colonises wounds in grafts Its important to wash nearby trees similarly as its transported by pollinators. But without the polysacchirides it cant get a grip. Take off any cankers without damaging cambium as this is where the pathogen overwinter. Grow a diversity of trees including multiple species of fruit not just one variety.

A healthy mycelium network is the most important ingredient for healthy trees they literally transport nutrients to each other to help ailing trees. Which can be fostered by importing mycelium laced soil from healthy areas and the use of biochar.

every possible disease is in my backyard and i like to grow fruit trees but sprays are not allowed and / or available to buy in my province, except: Sulphur Dust, Bordo Copper Spray, Garden Sulphur , copper sulphate. is this enough to prevent, kill diseases and insects that attack fruit trees; peaches, pears, grapes, quinces.