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In terms of its biological properties, the pear is close to the apple tree, but is more thermophilic. It lives up to 130 years and is considered a long-liver among fruit trees. It’s all the more offensive when pears rot on the tree, crack, turn black or fall off. This can destroy the harvest; at best, it significantly reduces it and makes the fruit unsuitable for storage. Housewives cannot process spoiled pears, and farmers lose profits.
Why do pears crack and rot on the tree?
Most often, rotting pears on a tree causes moniliosis. But this is not the only reason for crop damage. Insects can “work” on fruits, proper garden care is of great importance, and other diseases have not been canceled. For example, cracking of pear fruits occurs due to scab.
Scab
One of the most common diseases of pome fruit crops is scab. If this microscopic fungus begins to develop in the spring, the leaves of the pear are the first to suffer; they turn black and fall off by mid-summer. Most of the ovaries die.
But often trees are affected in the middle of the season. Then the fungus affects the leaves less, but the fruits first become covered with dark spots, then crack, take on an ugly shape and stop developing. If an infection gets into the wound, the pears not only burst, but also rot. Often it is scab that precedes the tree becoming infected with moniliosis.
The fungus is widespread in all regions where pome crops grow; it affects stone fruits less. Damp, warm weather contributes to the spread of the disease.
The gib overwinters on the bark of affected shoots and infected leaves. For prevention, standard sanitary measures are recommended; for treatment, repeated spraying with copper-containing and difenoconazole-based preparations is recommended.
Moniliosis
But the most common and difficult to eliminate reason why pear fruits crack and rot on the tree is moniliosis. The disease is caused by a fungus of the genus Monilia, it manifests itself in two forms:
- fruit rot, affecting fruits that have already formed in mid-summer, it poses the greatest danger to pome crops;
- monilial burn of young vegetative organs: leaves, shoots, flowers, ovaries - appears in the spring and causes the greatest damage to stone fruit trees.
External manifestations of fruit monilial rot become noticeable after pouring pears. Small brown spots appear on the fruit, spreading very quickly and covering the entire surface. The further development of the disease can follow one of two scenarios:
- High humidity promotes the development of spores.Yellowish or grayish pads appear on pears, located randomly or in circles - this depends on the type of fungus of the genus Monilia that affected the crop.
- At low humidity, spores do not form. Pears dry out and turn black, but do not fall from the tree.
Sick fruits, when in contact with healthy vegetative organs, become infected; if contact occurs with a branch, dark oval spots appear on the bark. When they accumulate, the top of the shoot dries out.
The mycelium of the infectious agent overwinters on mummified pears, fallen leaves and affected branches. As soon as the temperature reaches 12° C, the fungus begins to grow. At this time, the causative agent of molinial burn is activated, the conidia of fruit rot need more heat - 24 ° C.
The infection is spread by wind, insects, along with raindrops flowing down, through the touch of people and animals. Infection of a pear with scab opens the real gate for moniliosis. It is on this crop that, thanks to the thin peel, both infections affect the fruits simultaneously. First, due to scab, the pear cracks, and then rots on the branch due to moniliosis.
How to save the harvest
Depending on the degree of damage to the pear, 20-70% of the harvest is lost due to moniliosis. Fruits that are infected but picked in the initial stages of the disease are poorly stored and quickly begin to rot. It is difficult to combat moniliosis; it is impossible to prevent it, since the spores can even be carried by the wind. Spraying is effective only at the initial stage. Severely affected trees require comprehensive measures - a combination of chemical treatments, pruning and sanitation measures.
Agrotechnical techniques
The plant protection system can only work with the proper use of agrotechnical practices.The most important are:
- proper garden layout - free placement of trees will make it difficult to transfer infection from one plant to another;
- planting varieties resistant to moniliosis - now there are enough of them to satisfy the most fastidious gardener;
- timely pruning of trees - removal of dry, diseased and crown-thickening branches not only destroys infected vegetative organs, but also makes treatments more effective;
- compliance with the feeding schedule: correctly selected doses of phosphorus and potassium make the leaves and skin of the fruit stronger and more elastic, infections are more difficult to penetrate into them than into flabby and weakened ones;
- digging the tree trunk circle in spring and autumn not only saturates the soil with oxygen, allows the tree to better absorb nutrients or water, but also destroys fungal spores overwintering in the soil;
- sanitary measures - removing from the area dry leaves and mummified fruits on which the mycelium of monilial fungi overwinters, prevents the development of the disease in the new season;
- autumn moisture replenishment allows pears to overwinter better, because of this their tissues become stronger and less permeable to infection.
Chemicals
Fungicide treatment is most effective in the initial stages of the disease. If moniliosis has severely affected the tree, the pears burst and rot in rainy weather, or turn black and dry out in the absence of rain for a long time, you will have to pick off the infected fruits in order to save part of the harvest. Complete protection against the disease looks like this:
- Before the buds open, the pear is treated with a copper-containing preparation;
- along the pink cone (during the extension of peduncles) and immediately after flowering - with fungicides such as Horus, Skor, or other drugs based on difenoconazole or cyprodinil;
- when the pears begin to fill, two more fungicide treatments are needed with an interval of 14 days;
- after leaf fall - spraying the tree with copper-containing preparations in high concentration.
If the pear is severely affected, in the summer it may require more than 2 treatments. They must be carried out at intervals of at least two weeks. The last spraying should not be done later than 15 days before harvest.
Biological agents
Protecting pears from fruit rotting by biological methods does not negate treatment with copper-containing preparations at the beginning and end of the season. In the middle of the growing season, to combat moniliosis, you can use:
- Fitosporin-M;
- Alirin;
- Mikosan;
- Fitolavin.
As auxiliary preparations, epin or zircon is added to the spray bottle.
Traditional methods
There are no effective folk methods to combat pear moniliosis. It's better not to waste time on them.
Preventive measures
Proper agricultural technology is the best prevention of rotting of pear fruits. To what is written in the chapter “Agrotechnical techniques” one should add the early spring and late autumn treatment of wood with copper-containing preparations.
Sometimes gardeners complain that treatments are ineffective. Some even indicate the reason - a blue sediment remains at the bottom of the cylinder, therefore, copper does not dissolve well and does not get onto the tree.To make your life easier, you can buy drugs that the manufacturer produces in the form of an emulsion, for example, Kuproxat.
What else can cause fruit rot?
Sometimes pears rot right on the tree not because of some terrible disease, but because of poor-quality planting material, the owners’ ignorance of the characteristics of the variety, or a banal failure to comply with basic care rules. Before you begin long-term and complex treatment of a fungal disease or destroy a tree, you should identify the source of the problem.
Feature of the variety
Some old varieties have this feature - the pears, before they have time to ripen, soften from the inside. If you cut the fruit, the outer layer will still be hard, but the middle will be a real mess. By the time the pear acquires its characteristic color and aroma, there is no longer a semi-liquid mass inside, but rot.
This feature is caused by the imperfection of the variety and was inherited by the crop from its wild ancestors. This way the pear accelerates the ripening of the seeds, and they germinate very quickly. Modern cultivars usually do not have this drawback.
Which exit? It is better to regraft the tree. You can collect the pears when they have not yet softened from the inside and put them in a dark, cool place to ripen. If the fruits are whole and tasty, you should do this in subsequent seasons. But since the pears are still rotten inside, the variety needs to be changed.
Incorrect harvest time
Late varieties of pears must be harvested at the stage of technical ripeness. They reach consumer consumption during storage. Those gardeners who do not pay attention to this and wait for the fruits to ripen on the tree risk being left without a harvest.
Overflow
It seems like everyone knows that you can’t overwater a pear. All articles devoted to culture contain this warning. But even experienced gardeners sometimes step on the banal “rakes” of watering.
Perhaps, at least once, the issue should be given a little more attention than usual. And so that the essence of the problem becomes clear even to novice gardeners, and experienced ones “see the light,” it is better to do this with a specific example.
There is always not enough space in a small (or even very large) area. The owners are in search every season - they try to carve out at least a small piece of land for a new crop. Here they brought wild strawberries adapted for the garden to the plot. Where should I plant it? And under the pear tree the earth is “walking”! And strawberries tolerate partial shade well.
The culture took root, grew, and blossomed. Beautiful! And in the summer it began to dry out right along with the berries - there is not enough water. Let's water it, we need to save the harvest. What about pear? It's a tree, it can withstand a couple of extra waterings.
So they pour water under the pear twice a week, and nothing seems to be done to it. The time has come to harvest. And the pears rot on the tree from the inside! No, no, it’s not because the tree was drowned in water, it’s a bad variety! Let's re-graft the pear!
The same thing will happen with the next variety. And what? The gardener complains that he has no luck with pears. Well, no matter what is grafted, only rot grows. Even from the chibouks, personally taken from a neighbor who was treating everyone she knew to beautiful sweet fruits, nothing worthwhile came of it. Well, it’s just some kind of mysticism!
Insect sting
Often pears are damaged by wasps - an infection gets into the site of the insect's injection, and the fruit rots.To prevent this from happening, the harvest must be harvested on time and the fruits must not be allowed to become overripe.
But the striped pest is not always attracted to the aroma of ripe fruits. A wasp may fly to the smell left by the hands of an unlucky gardener who first picked other fruits or berries, and then for some reason decided to touch the pear. This happens quite often.
Weather disasters
A strong wind, swinging heavy pears, can damage them in the stem area. If moniliosis spores or another infection get there, the fruit will begin to rot. It’s not for nothing that all recommendations for choosing a site for planting trees say: “a place protected from the wind.”
Hail, which can occur every few years in the summer even in the southern regions, damages not only pears, but also other crops. It is impossible to predict or protect against it, but must be treated as if it were a natural disaster. Which is exactly what a city is.
Conclusion
Pears rot on the tree for various reasons. They need to be fought, but it is impossible to completely protect fruit trees from moniliosis. Correct agricultural technology, timely implementation of sanitary measures and preventive spraying will significantly reduce the damage caused by the disease.
