When to Harvest European Pear

Q. I have a ten-year-old Bartlett pear tree and the pears are kind of small, about 3 inches long. The label says they ripen in August but mine are not ripe until end of October. November. I pick them, leave them out in kitchen and they become juicy and ripe. I water the trees heavily once a week and the fruit improve. Is there any way to make tree produce larger fruit?

Comice pear growing in southern Nevada.

A. Bartlett pear has the potential here for getting the same size as in the stores with the same or better quality. It is a matter of how many fruit there are compared to the number of leaves. If there are a lot of fruit and not enough leaves to support the fruit, the fruit will be smaller. 

Harvested Bartlett pear in southern Nevada.

            For Bartlett pear you should have about 45 to 50 leaves for each piece of fruit so that they can get larger. The fruit is produced on spurs that form an average of five fruit per cluster. Remove all but one fruit per cluster when the fruit has recently set and is still very small. This may be hard to judge when the fruit is just starting out in the spring but try removing all but one of the fruit in each cluster. If you want the fruit larger, next year remove more. Do it when they are small. Don’t wait. The remaining fruit will get larger. This is called “thinning the crop” or just plain “thinning”.

            Fruit also needs water present to expand and get big when its growing. Make sure the tree gets adequate water while the fruit is enlarging. If the tree doesn’t, the fruit will not grow as much. I don’t know if your watering is often enough or not. But in midsummer I would guess the trees should be watered deeply two or three times a week. Once a week is good in the Fall when it cools off.

Bartlett pear ready for harvesting, still immature yet for fresh eating.

            Pick Bartlett pears when they are still green, but the green has changed from dark green to light green. Your label is wrong. Harvesting should be in about late September or early October, not August. If you aren’t sure, pick one and cut it open to look at the seeds. The seeds should be all brown then go ahead and pick them. Picking may last two weeks as they don’t all get ready to pick at once.

    Pick the fruit before they turn yellow because this keeps the fruit texture buttery instead of gritty. Then let them ripen in a cool place out of the sun until they are ready to eat in a few days. When you get them from the store they are sometimes green. Ripen them like that before eating them.