Wow, I never heard of an Asian pear that won't set fruit. But that sounds like lack of pollination. Any other pears around that bloom at the same time? If not you may need another variety of Asian pear. Any pear might work if they bloom together but that's a little more iffy. My favorite is Korean Giant but I'm not sure it's a good pollinator because it doesn't bloom as profusely as most Asian pears.

well it does set fruit but it just won't grow bigger. It stays at the size of a penny.

cyh:

The fruit was never set if that's all the bigger it gets. Any type fruit tree does the same thing. Without pollination the fruit appears to set but stops growing at a small size and falls off.

really? that sucks! I have lots of bees in my yard but they tend to stay with the fragrant flowers. What would you suggest I do? Should I hand pollinate?

I'm having trouble believing 20th Century won't set by its self. Are there other pears that bloom at the same time? But even if there are my bees don't like pears either.

Here's what I do for a tree that doesn't produce, grab the saw.

A few other options than the saw:

1. Plant a second Asian pear variety for cross pollination, wait for it to mature
2. Graft another variety or two to your tree and wait for maturity
3. Faster method to at least see if you pear is worth keeping - get some blossoming branches from another Asian pear and use them to hand pollinate the flowers from your tree. If that does not work, there is still that saw.

A few years ago, when I only had 20th Century and Korean Giant for pear trees, I got fruit from both trees. They are next to each other (8-10 ft apart). I'd say they pollinated each other.

In fact, the first year my KG flowered, my 20th Century did not. I hand-pollinated KG with my friend's 20th Century's flowers. She has the same two trees.

They were the only two pears trees that flowered for a couple of years until Shinko started flowering (it got taken out last year for poor fruit quality).

Now I also have Hosui and other Euro pears.

Yeah, I am not sure WHAT is going on with my 20th century. It's about 20 ft tall and have small white blooms. NO mature fruits. I am trying to hand-pollinate it with my Hosui.

I heard maybe zone 10 just don't have enough chill hours for my 20th century. But then again, why would it bloom with no chill hours met?

I would be scared it was a miss labeled tree.

John that crossed my mind also, maybe it's a bradford pear or a rootstock. 20th century can reach 20ft but that's pretty tall for an Asian pear. And I don't know as I'd call Asian pear flowers small. They're not big but not tiny either.

I would not call 20th Century flowers small, either. If you see non-showing peach flower type, those are small.

I am with Fruitnut and John. I fear that you may have a flowering pear tree, not the fruiting one.

Where did you buy it from?

Well this fruited the first year in normal size but since then it's been tiny tiny tiny. I got it from a local nursery : /

If you got normal fruit at one point, then it is a pollination issue. Incompatable pollen or self pollen or lack of pollinators. See above.

Hi. I saw your post as I was looking over the forum. Can I ask how old is your pear tree? How old are the fruiting branches of your pear tree? I have read that with Asian pears, you have to prune old branches off to allow new branches to grow because fruits from old branches are very small and of poor quality. Fruting branches of 2-4 years old form the best and largest fruits.

Any possibility we can see a picture of the foliage / fruit. It sounds like a pollination issue to me as well. Did your tree ever have any dieback after it fruited? Callery pears aka Bradford pear among other names are easy to identify by a photograph. It's very likely the rootstock for your 20th century would be a callery pear.

I was just looking if somebody else have the same problem as me? My tree is about 3-4 years and every year it does the same thing! it blooms, makes fruits and grows to about a penny and that’s it 😰 quite prolific but the fruit does not get big ! this post is 9yrs? I wonder what happened to your asian pear tree? I hate to cut it down as I have waited this long !

Pictures of the foliage and fruit, if any, would be really helpful. My suspicion of the original problem pear is that the rootstock grew out after the first year and the scion died off. But since pictures were never offered it's impossible to tell.