At a Glance
- The pear grows steeply upward and ages quickly. Pruning it has two goals: keep the scaffold branches flat and renew old fruiting wood regularly.
- Pruning time for pear and quince is late winter, mid-February to late March · CW 7 to 13, on dry days without hard frost.
- Pears bear fruit on short fruiting spurs and gnarled spur clusters. These short shoots bear for many years, but eventually tire and start to sag.
- The quince blooms at the tips of young shoots. Cutting them back costs you the harvest, thinning every two to three years is enough.
- Pears are the primary host of fire blight. Disinfecting your tools between trees is non-negotiable here.
If you know how to prune an apple tree, the pear will still leave you scratching your head. The branches shoot straight up into the sky, the crown grows narrow and tall, and after a few years the fruit sits only where no ladder can reach. Pyrus communis simply isn't an apple with different fruit, it has its own growth habit.
The quince is its quiet relative among the pome fruits: slow, gnarled, good natured. Its greatest enemy is an overeager gardener with pruning shears. This article covers both, and how to read their fruiting wood before you cut.
Why the Pear Grows Differently
Pears show strong apical dominance. The topmost bud on a shoot gets the most sap, and anything growing steeply just grows steeper. With apples, the branches eventually bend flatter under the weight of the fruit. The pear stays stubbornly upright.
This has two consequences. First, the scaffold branches compete with the central leader until the crown looks like a broom. Second, a steep branch forms a lot of wood and few flowers. Flatter branches bear earlier and more. The basic rule "steep grows, flat bears" from Fruit Tree Pruning Basics applies doubly to the pear.
Getting the Scaffold Branches Flat
On a young tree, you spread the three to four scaffold branches to about 45 to 60 degrees. You can do this with a wooden spreader between trunk and branch, or with a string tied to a peg in the ground. After one summer, the branch has settled into its new position.
On older trees, nothing bends anymore. Here you cut steep branch tips back to a flatter, outward facing side branch, a reduction cut. The branch keeps its vigor but grows in a direction that brings fruit.
Reading Fruiting Wood: Spurs, Ringed Spurs, Clusters
In winter, you can spot four kinds of wood on a pear. Long shoots are the one year old, smooth whips with narrow, tight lying leaf buds. Fruiting spurs are short shoots three to ten centimeters long that end in a plump flower bud. Ringed spurs are even shorter and carry closely spaced rings of leaf scars. And spur clusters are the thickened, gnarled spots where a fruiting spur has been bearing for many years.
On a pear, flower buds are large, plump, and slightly pointed. Leaf buds are narrow and sit close to the wood. If you count how many plump buds a branch has in February, you'll know whether it bears this year or takes a rest year.
What to Do with Each Kind of Wood
- One-Year-Old Long Shoots
On the scaffold branch: leave it and shorten by at most a third, cutting to an outward facing bud. Growing steeply upward inside the crown: remove at the base.
- Fruiting Spurs and Ringed Spurs
Never shorten these. This is the harvest for years to come. Only where they crowd each other, remove individual ones at the base.
- Spur Clusters and Old Fruiting Wood
If it's branched many times over, hangs downward, and only produces small fruit: cut it back to a young shoot on the upper side.
Renewing Fruiting Wood Before It Tires
Pears form plenty of fruiting wood, and that's exactly the problem. A spur cluster keeps branching further over the years, until twenty flower buds are competing for too little foliage. The fruit stays small, the branch sags, and the inside of the crown grows shady.
The solution is fruiting wood renewal. You pick out the oldest, drooping fruit branches and cut them back just past a young, well placed shoot. That shoot takes over the fruit branch's role and forms new spurs within two years. You thin out branched spur clusters by removing about half the branching. Renew a third of the old fruiting wood each winter, and the yield stays steady.
Pear, Step by Step
Remove Competition with the Central Leader
Remove, at the base, any shoots growing steeper and higher than the top of the trunk. The crown needs a clear leader standing above the scaffold branches.
Remove Steep Shoots Inside the Crown
Everything that shoots straight up from the top of the scaffold branches comes off. These water sprouts shade the crown and won't bear fruit for years.
Redirect or Spread the Scaffold Branches
You spread young scaffold branches; on older ones, cut back to a flatter side branch. The branch tips should end up at roughly the same height, so none outgrows the others.
Renew Fruiting Wood
Cut back about a third of the oldest, drooping fruit branches to a young shoot. Thin out branched spur clusters.
Fine-Tune in Summer
In June, pull off new water sprouts while they're still green and soft. Pulled shoots regrow less often than cut ones.
Fire Blight: Hygiene Is Mandatory
Pears are the primary host of fire blight, a bacterial disease that shrivels shoot tips black and hook shaped. The bacteria travel from tree to tree on shears and saws. Disinfect your tools between trees with 70 percent alcohol, and if a tree is infected, cut at least 50 centimeters into healthy wood. For how to recognize fire blight, see Recognizing Fire Blight and What to Do.
Cultivar and Rootstock Determine Pruning Severity
A pear on a seedling rootstock becomes a standard tree eight to twelve meters tall and tolerates a heavy pruning. The same cultivar on Quince A stays at three to four meters and forms fruiting wood early. Here a light touch is enough, otherwise it grows too weakly. More on this in Understanding Fruit Tree Rootstocks and Planting a Pear Tree.
The cultivar matters too. Pear ‘Conference’ readily forms fruiting spurs and forgives a bold renewal cut. Pear ‘Williams Christ’ bears early and heavily, so its fruiting wood ages faster and wants a little renewal every year.
Pyrus communis
- Familie
- Rose family (Rosaceae)
- Standort
- Sunny, warm, sheltered from wind
- Saison
- Pruning CW 7 to 13, summer pruning CW 24 to 30
- Wasserbedarf
- Moderate, no waterlogging
- Frosthärte
- Hardy, though blossoms are vulnerable to late frost
Short on space and not keen on ladder work? Columnar pears on Quince A grow narrow and upright, bearing on short side shoots right along the trunk. Pruning them comes down to shortening side shoots to a hand's width in summer and keeping the tip at gutter height.
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The Quince: Thin, Don't Shorten
The quince (Cydonia oblonga) blooms late, not until May, at the tips of short shoots that grow in spring from the previous year's wood. If you shorten the one year old shoots in winter, you remove exactly the buds these flowering shoots come from. That's the most common reason a healthy quince bears no fruit.
Pruning a quince is therefore purely a thinning cut, and that's enough every two to three years. Remove dead wood along with branches growing inward or crossing each other. On older shrubs, remove one of the oldest branches close to the ground or at the trunk, so light reaches the center.
Prune Later, Keep It Airy
Quince wood is a bit more frost sensitive than apple or pear. Prune it toward the end of the window, early to late March · CW 10 to 13, once the hard frosts are over.
An airy crown also protects against quince leaf blight, a fungal disease that causes brown spots and early leaf drop in dense, damp quince shrubs. Remove root suckers at the base every year, or the quince will grow into a thicket.
Cydonia oblonga
- Familie
- Rose family (Rosaceae)
- Standort
- Sunny, warm, sheltered
- Saison
- Thin every 2 to 3 years, CW 10 to 13
- Wasserbedarf
- Moderate, evenly moist
- Frosthärte
- Hardy to about minus 20 degrees
Which quince varieties suit the home garden and what to do with the harvest is covered in Quince in the Home Garden. Incidentally, you prune the related nashi and medlar like the pear and the quince respectively: renew the nashi's fruiting wood, and just thin the medlar.
The pear wants to be guided, the quince wants to be left alone.
A rule of thumb for pome fruit
Note down which fruit branches you renewed this winter. You'll find them again next February in your Gartenkern diary, and you'll know which third is up next.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should you prune a pear tree?
The main pruning happens in late winter, from mid-February to late March, on dry days without hard frost. A small summer pruning follows in June, when you pull out new water sprouts.
Why does my pear tree only bear fruit at the very top?
Because the scaffold branches stand too steeply and the inside of the crown sits in shade. Steep branches form a lot of wood and few flowers. Cut the branch tips back to flatter side branches and thin out the inside, and fruiting wood will form lower down again.
What is a spur cluster on a pear tree?
A spur cluster is the thickened, gnarled spot where a short fruiting shoot has bloomed for many years. It bears for a long time, but eventually branches so heavily that the fruit stays small. When that happens, thin it out or cut the fruit branch back to a young shoot.
Do you need to prune a quince every year?
No. A quince only needs a thinning cut every two to three years. You shouldn't shorten its shoots, since it blooms at the tips of young shoots.
Why isn't my quince blooming?
Most likely it was shortened in winter, which removed the buds that the flowering shoots grow from in spring. Young quinces also need four to six years before their first harvest. Leave it unpruned for a year, then go back to thinning only.
Sources and Further Reading
- Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture (LWG), Bavarian Garden Academy: Pruning pear and quince in the home garden. lwg.bayern.de/gartenakademie
- Julius Kühn Institute: Fire blight in pome fruit. julius-kuehn.de
- Plant database: Pear, Quince
- In the magazine: Fruit Tree Pruning by Fruit Type, Growing a Fruit Espalier: Apple and Pear, Summer Pruning Fruit Trees
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