Pear - the second most common fruit tree after the apple tree. This plant belongs to the family Rosaceae and the group of pome seeds. Pear because of its low frost resistance has traditionally been grown in the southern regions. But now, thanks to the efforts of breeders, residents of more northern regions can grow this fruit tree in their own area.
Plant a pear in spring or autumn
This question is asked by everyone who first decided to plant a pear in their area. There are many reasons for both spring and autumn planting, but for gardeners from regions where the average winter temperature is from -23 to -34 ° C, only one will be significant - trees planted in autumn will be more winter-hardy in the future. The only condition for a successful autumn planting of a pear, like any fruit tree, is that such a planting should be made a month before the onset of frost - until about mid-October.
If the gardener chooses a spring planting of a pear, then in this case the condition of the seedling becomes the criterion - it should be completely asleep. The survival rate of a seedling that has already started to grow is much lower than that of a sleeping one. The pear starts growing at a temperature of 5 ° C. Therefore, in regions with a colder climate (Belarus, Central Russia, Moscow Region, Leningrad Oblast, the Urals and Siberia), pearing should be completed by mid-April, and in regions with a warmer climate (Ukraine) by the end of March. You can only be guided by the specified dates. Specifically determine the date of planting seedlings is possible only on the basis of weather conditions in a particular area.
Where to plant a pear
When choosing a planting site, you need to consider that for its successful growth and fruiting it is necessary:
- Good lighting - when shaded, yield decreases and the taste of the fruit deteriorates.
- A ventilated, but protected from northerly winds place - even in places with a slight decrease, stagnation of air leads to the death of buds from return frosts and damage to fungal diseases during prolonged rains.
- Soils are easily moisture- and breathable with weak or neutral acidity. Sod-podzolic loams or sandstones are best suited.
- Groundwater should be at least 3 m from the surface. With a closer occurrence, they make earthen mounds with a height of half a meter of arbitrary diameter.
How to plant a pear on a site with a close occurrence of groundwater
- Sufficient feeding area - different types of pears differ from each other not only by the ripening period, but also by the growth power of the tree. Depending on the size of adult trees, they need a different feeding area:
- vigorous - 10x10 m;
- sredneroslym - 7x7 m;
- dwarf - 5x5 m;
- columnar - 2x2 m.
- Cross-pollination - 2-3 pears of other varieties should grow on the site or in the immediate vicinity of it.
Good and not so neighbors 3
When planting any plant, you need to consider which neighbors will surround it. In crop production, there is such a thing as allelopathy. This is both a positive and negative interaction of plants located close to each other.
The pear also has plants that help it in development with its volatile products or inhibit growth and become disease provocateurs. Good neighbors include pears:
- oak;
- maple;
- black poplar;
- tansy.
And plants that negatively affect the pear are:
- nuts - walnut, Manchu and black;
- acacia;
- chestnut;
- beech;
- mountain ash (she has the same diseases with a pear);
- dark coniferous (spruce, fir, cedar);
- stone fruits (cherry, plum, apricot, peach);
- junipers (especially Cossack);
- barberry;
- viburnum;
- lilac;
- rose flower;
- jasmine (mock orange);
- golden currant;
- wheat grass.
If wheatgrass is not enough to let pears into the near-trunk circle, then the trees and shrubs that negatively affect it should be no closer than fifty, or even a hundred meters. Juniper Cossack can become a source of such a fungal disease as rust.
Rust on a pear is a disease that can be infected by juniper.
This disease can lead not only to lower yields, but also to the death of pears.
How to plant a pear: video
In any regions where the climate allows you to grow pears, they are planted the same way. Having chosen a place and neighbors for a pear, they prepare a landing pit.
In any regions where the climate allows you to grow pears, they are planted the same way.
If the seedlings are going to be planted in the fall, then the pit is prepared in the spring or summer, but not later than 3 weeks before planting. For spring planting, a place for a seedling is prepared in the previous fall. Prepare a place for spring and autumn planting pears the same way, only do it in different seasons. A pit is made with a diameter of 70 cm and a depth of 1 m.
Sizes of pear planting pit
The upper, fertile soil layer is laid in one direction, the rest of the earth in the other. If there is sandy loam soil, then a clay layer at least 10 cm thick is placed at the bottom of the pit to retain moisture at the roots. On heavier soils, this is not necessary. Then compost or humus is poured into the pit. The thickness of this layer is 20 cm. The fertile soil set aside earlier is mixed with mineral fertilizers. Nitrofoski 100 g or 60 g of superphosphate and 30 g of potassium salt are added to the soil. This mixture is returned to the pit. They fill it with infertile soil from above, drive in a stake, so that it rises no less than 75 cm above the ground and is left until planting. If the soil on the site is very heavy, then two buckets of coarse sand are added to the infertile soil.
The pear seedling support is driven in the center of the planting pit.
When it comes time to plant a pear, the soil in the prepared pit is raked so that a mound is formed in the middle, and the width of the recess allows the seedling to be placed without bends.
Planting scheme of pear seedlings
The seedling is lowered into the hole, straighten the roots and fall asleep with earth. The root neck should protrude 3-5 cm from the ground.
The root neck of a pear seedling should protrude 3-5 cm from the ground
If the seedling is grafted, then the place of grafting, with this placement of the seedling, is 10-15 cm above ground level.
The vaccination site should be 10-15 cm above ground level
Only dwarf pears that are vaccinated with quince are placed so that the ground covers the vaccination site. Quince is a southern plant and plunging into the ground that part of the seedling that remains from it, protect the entire seedling from freezing.
After filling the hole to the top, the earth is compacted.
After filling the hole to the top, the earth is compacted
An earthen roller is formed along the edge of the landing pit. And watered with two buckets of non-cold water.
Pear seedlings are not watered with cold water
The planted tree is tied to a peg mounted on the north side of the pear in two places so that its trunk grows vertically.
I tie a pear seedling in two places
After the water is absorbed, the trunk circle is mulched - they are covered with 5-6 cm with a layer of peat, humus, sawdust or straw.
After watering, the pear seedling circle is mulched
When to buy seedlings
Not very experienced gardeners prefer to plant fruit trees in spring, although in autumn there are more choice of seedlings and these trees are more viable.
In nurseries, seedlings for implementation with an open root system are dug up in the fall. In spring, you can buy seedlings that were not sold last year. In farms that grow seedlings, there are many such trees and it is difficult to pay attention to each. If a summer resident acquires seedlings in the fall, then it is much easier for him to keep several trees without damage until spring.
Pears bought in the fall for spring planting are simple enough to keep. To do this, they are instilled in the area where they plan to grow the next year. Extra excavation work can be avoided if you use a pit prepared for planting a pear to store the seedling, but not yet covered with prepared soil. The north wall of this pit must be made vertical, and the south wall inclined by 30-45 °.
Laying scheme in the prikop seedlings of pears
Before laying the seedlings in the prikop, they are soaked in water for 5-6 hours. Stimulants or fertilizers are not added to the water. At the trees taken out of the water, inspect the roots and remove all damaged ones. Lay the seedling on an inclined wall so that the roots are facing north and the branches are above ground level. Sprinkle the roots with a layer of prepared soil 20 cm. Try to leave as few voids as possible in the soil covering the roots. It is watered and after the water is absorbed, it is sprinkled with dry earth with a layer of 5-6 cm. They do nothing else until the first frost. When the air temperature at night is set below 0 °, the hole is completely filled up. A small mound above it will divert part of the meltwater from the prikop.
Seedling branches protruding from the ground are shifted with clippings of raspberries or other prickly plants to protect them from rodents. It is impossible to cover the trench with any covering material. It is better to pour snow there several times during the winter. Under the insulation, the plant wakes up before it can be planted. Preserved in this way, seedlings spring well and take root quickly.
Pear propagation
Pear, like most plants, is propagated in two ways - vegetative and seed. There are several methods of vegetative propagation:
- woody and green cuttings;
- layering;
- root shoot.
Pear propagation by cuttings
Cuttings are used for vaccination or rooting. Inoculate cuttings on a pear of another variety, wild game, a seedling grown from a seed, or another tree from the family of a pome seed (apple, quince). For rooting, woody cuttings are harvested in March-April, when the movement of juices in a pear begins, and green cuttings are harvested in June-July, by this time the growth of branches of the current year will be well formed. The lower section of the harvested cuttings is treated with root formation stimulants and planted in boxes or beds with nutrient soil. These plantings are covered with a plastic film or transparent containers, to create a microclimate favorable for the formation of roots in cuttings. After 3-4 months, roots form on them, after 6 months, seedlings are obtained, which can already be planted in a permanent place on the site. Planting is carried out in the same way as purchased seedlings. Cuttings of not all varieties of pears take root well. Gardeners have determined that for this it is better to take cuttings of pears varieties:
- Memory of Zhegalov;
- Dressed Efimova;
- Lada;
- Autumn Yakovleva;
- Muscovite.
Video about rooting cuttings
Pear propagation by layering
Using layering, seedlings with their own root system are also obtained. Layings are done in two ways:
- bending branches to the ground;
For pear propagation by layering, the lower branches are bent to the ground
- air layering.
Variety pear propagation by air layering
In order for the roots to form on the branch:
- On the woody part of the branch, just below the growth of the current year, remove the bark ring 1-1.5 cm wide.
- Lubricate the branch area, freed from the bark with a drug that stimulates root growth.
- Secure the branch with a wire clip in the ground.
- Attach the growing end of the branch to the vertical support.
A seedling obtained by layering a branch to the ground is left not separated from the branch until next year. In the spring, with a sharp knife or secateurs, it is separated from the branch and planted in a regular place in the usual way.
Bending branches to the ground is not always convenient. Then they make air layers - nutrient soil or sphagnum is fixed on a branch in a plastic bag. All operations on the branch are performed in the same way as in the previous case, and then:
- Put on a branch, cut from the bottom of the plastic bag and secure with wire or tape below the cut bark.
- Fill the bag with moistened soil or sphagnum.
- Fix the upper edge of the bag 10 cm from the place where the bark was cut.
- Attach the growing end of the branch to the vertical support.
The seedling obtained from the air lay is separated from the branch when the roots become visible in the bag or in autumn at the beginning of the fall. In the southern regions, such seedlings can be immediately identified in a permanent place. In regions with severe winters, seedlings are dug up or planted in a pot and stored in the basement until spring, periodically watering.
Layering propagation video
Pear propagation by root shoots
Varietal pears can give root shoots - thin shoots sprout from the roots in the near-trunk circle or not far from it. To use the root shoot for propagation of the variety is possible only if it is obtained from a self-root tree, and not grafted. Using the root shoot of a grafted tree, a seedling is obtained with the characteristics of a stock, that is, a tree on which a liked pear variety has been grafted.
Sapling from the root shoot of a varietal pear
The root shoot of a varietal pear is carefully dug up so as not to damage the fibrous (thin) roots. A part of the root with a young shoot is separated and transplanted to a permanent place, prepared in the same way as for an ordinary seedling. In the future, from this seedling a tree will grow that repeats all the characteristics of the mother.
Pear seed propagation
Pear is propagated by seeds very rarely. To obtain a plant identical to the parent, you need to be absolutely sure that pollination with pears of other varieties or wild animals has not occurred. This is very difficult to achieve. Insects bring on themselves the pollen of other plants for several kilometers. Usually propagated by seed pears, which will serve as a stock for varietal plants.
When and how to transplant a pear
The pear is transplanted in early spring or late autumn at the same time as indicated for planting seedlings. A new hole for the tree is prepared in the same way as previously described in this article. The age of the pear that they want to transplant should not exceed fifteen years. If it was planted with a two-year-old seedling, then on the site it grew no more than 13 years. The older the tree, the more difficult it is to take root in a new place. Easier to tolerate this procedure pears aged 3 to 5 years.
The most difficult thing in replanting trees is to dig them up correctly. At what distance from the trunk to dig is determined by the projection of the crown or calculated based on the size of the trunk. The calculation is as follows: the trunk girth is multiplied by 2 and its diameter is added, that is, if Ø 5 cm, then the trunk girth will be 15 cm. Therefore, the distance at which the pear is dug will be: 15x2 + 5 = 35 cm. Marking a circle of this diameter , along its outer contour they dig a trench 50 cm wide and 45-60 cm deep.
Properly dig a pear for transplant
An earthen lump with roots is formed in the form of a cone. This lump weighs about 50 kg.
An earthen lump with the roots of the transplanted pear is formed into a cone
If there is a possibility (two strong men), then on one side of the trench spread a burlap, tilt the tree so that the earthen lump lies on the fabric, and remove it from the pit.
Two strong men can take out a pear from a hole with a lump of earth
Transferred to a new landing site and lowered into the prepared hole.
A pear with a lump of land is being transferred to a new place of residence
Sacking can not be removed - in a year it will decay and will not interfere with the development of the roots.
Sacking from the roots of the transplanted pear can not be removed
A tree transplant with a closed root system provides guaranteed survival of the pear in a new place.
If it is not possible to remove the tree from the ground, then its roots are carefully shaken off or the soil is washed away with water from the hose.
A heavy lump of earth on the roots of a pear is eroded with water from a hose
Get out of the pit.
Easier to carry the pear whose roots are freed from the ground.
Transferred to a pit prepared in advance at a new location. Roots are placed without creases and bends up.
Open root root pear transplant
They fill it with earth, compact it and watered the earth, formed a near-trunk circle.
Trees with open roots take root more difficult. The crown growth and yield in the first year after transplantation will be small, but in the future the tree will grow and bear fruit normally.
All pear planting operations are easy to do. The main thing is to choose the right place for the tree, given the already growing bushes and trees nearby. Further careful care and adherence to the agricultural technology of this fruit tree will allow the gardener to enjoy the fruits of his labor for many years.
