Hard to say, I got the feeling they were too wet.

Sounds to me like your pear probably died. I would guess that something cut off the nutrients from the roots--soil too wet, something damaged the bark down low, some other problem.

You can wait and see if any new growth appears, otherwise just replace it this fall or next spring.

I transplant a lot of pears in my nursery and they suffer more from shock than any other species I grow. Sometimes they come out of a transplant with the leaves you describe and struggle along the first season but improve and become healthy eventually.

So the question is, did you buy the tree in full leaf in a pot or was it dormant at time of purchase? If it was dug and put in the pot or you bought it bare root it may be transplant shock. I also lose more pears than other varieties, especially when I try to move them bare root and they are over about 1.5" diameter.

Sounds like your young Bartlett got fireblight to me. Especially since it sounds like the symptoms started after flowering. When my pears get fb the leaves usually curl first then slowly but surley turn brown and black. Look at the ends of the branches,are they curling back? If so it is probably fireblight. The curling back is called a shepards crook and is charecteristic of fireblight.

Scape

My biggest problem with pears is blister mite...If I don't get oil on them early, the trees look terrible. i've had several almost completely defoliate from it. What is funny, is right next to one tree that got hit hard, the Seckel pear looks perfect with no damage whatsoever. I use Neem and that seems to work well.

Pear blister mites can't be reached by any poison once they are in the leaves, I'm told. They key is to put down 2% oil just before new growth starts.

Continuing this tangent on blister mite, I have been using sulphur on blister mite. I discovered by accident that it worked well (was getting rid of spray load of sulphur by hitting a few pears and those had all dead mites in a few days). Then I googled it and found an official recommendation for it somewhere. They recommended lime-sulphur but I had good luck with plain sulphur. Early on I use oil which gets most of it, and a few weeks later the sulphur nails what is left.

Scott

Scott-

I have some sulfur here so I'll have to try that next. I had it very bad when the first leaves came out...then i hit them with neem about a month ago, the next set of leaves were fine (no damage), now another flush of leaves look bad again so I hit them with another dose of neem. By far my biggest issue with pears.

Frank, the last two years I have hit the later blister mite with sulphur and after one spray that was it. Make sure to give the neem plenty of time to evaporate away before applying sulphur. A week should be long enough.

Scott