Im a rookie at all of this. Bought a house last year that had 5 fruit trees on them and have since planted another 25 with another 10 going in here at the end of the week. Anyways i was doing my nightly walk checking the trees and noticed a little piece of my pear tree laying on the ground. Here a woodpecker had been going to town on a piece that i knew was damaged, but not nearly as bad as I found tonight. The tree is about 12 feet high and has a diameter of about 8 inches at the base. It was not properly trained, it looks like it was cut to be a open center, it has a nice Y shape at about 3 feet with just two main branches, but out of the center there is a central leader with no major scaffolds coming off of it that goes straight up about another 8 feet.

After seeing the damage i began to dig all of the rotten wood out. The damage starts about 1.5 feet up from the ground and goes up about 3 feet in a strip 2 inches wide. It seems the damage is concentrated on the center part of the tree. It has also started to heal over the edges of the rotten area.

I need some advice on what to do. The tree looks healthy and is loaded with flower buds and is starting to push out its leaves. I know its hard without any pics but would it be smart to knock the center out and as much of the damaged area as possible, or just let it alone and see what happens? I would only get about 15% of the damage if i cut the center out. This was one of only two trees that gave me fruit last year.