You planted these pears and apples in full sun six years ago. They were in containers? Size? Type? N. Wyo. sounds like heavily compacted inorganic soil. Did you break up the soil and work in amendments? How much top growth per year? Could these trees still be containerized? Did you dig around the root ball to see roots. In a new planting you should see new white roots growing out of the ball. In six year old trees there should be large outgrowing roots.

I have planted trees in containers that bore heavily 1st season. The fruit forms and withers or does not grow.
A few make it but not to full size. Best to remove fruit 1st year due to insufficient roots.

In my yard I plant BR. I use amended soil, mulch, fertilizer and irrigation, I get up 5 feet new branch growth with any type fruit tree. I use clothes pins to set the branch angles. I select 4-5 scaffold branches from the BR trunk or the growing central leader.

beeone:

I assume when you refer to your "pears", you have more than one variety for the purposes of cross-pollination, even though in your last sentence you refer to "the tree". Both European and Asian pears require at least one compatible companion tree for pollination. Without that they will behave as yours are doing; they appear to set fruit, but it falls off well before it achieves any size.

Even if you have more than one tree, or there are others in the neighborhood that can serve as pollenizers, weather conditions such as those you describe during bloom period can inhibit pollination by discouraging insect visits or washing away the pollen.

My Asian pears began to produce at about 5 years in the ground, but every European pear variety I have ever grown has required from 8-10 years to begin to set and hold fruit. Some tried my patience so much that I took them out.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

My opinion is also lack of pollination. If this is your only pear tree you may consider getting another or grafting yours to provide a pollinizer. Al

Thanks for the suggestions. This is the only pear tree at this location. It is supposed to be self fruitful, but I understand cross pollination is always helpful. I have 2 other pears about 3/4 mile SW (didn't bloom this year) and there are a couple others about 1/2 mile east (bloomed nicely this year), and another 2 miles east. Pears are scarce here because "pears won't grow in Wyoming". I'm really stretching the distances for getting cross pollination, though. The flowers were covered with native bees and bumblebees during bloom when they first opened and we had a few days of summer before the rain.

I've been thinking of trying another variety of pear and maybe should move that up to next year. I guess it just puzzled me that 2 years ago the tree had just a few flower clusters and probably half the flowers set fruit and carried to maturity, so I figured it was old enough to start producing.

Ace: I planted it as a bare root tree. Never dug in to see what it had for roots since then, though. It really hasn't grown that much, probably about 6-7 feet now on the tallest branch. Some of the spurs that come out have grown over 12-18 inches in a year, but generally growth is limited to around 6-8 inches on the main branches. I've done very limited pruning, just to remove branches that were growing in directions where they would interfere, and I spread the limbs using notched sticks. Normal organic matter for my soil is less than 1% and I haven't really done anything here to change that. The soil is sandy on top of river gravel/sand starting about 18 inches down and marked by a layer of lime.

The obvious answer to withering fruit is pollination. Shame on you "beeone". Plant a pollinizer pear this fall. Fall planted trees grow rapidly in the spring. This spring I planted 5 varieties of cold hardy pears from St. Lawrence Nursery,Z3. These were large caliper, big taproot plants, well wrapped for shipping. I have not been upstate in a while but I am told these pears are growing well. I also have a Flemish Beauty pear here on Long Island that thrives in zone 4.

I'm not daring enough to plant a tree in fall. Winters are just too harsh--dry and cold and windy and supplemental water doesn't soak in well when the ground is frozen solid several feet deep. However, I got my trees from St. Lawrence also--they were good trees. Was just starting to get more interested in trying to find hary fruits to grow and they advertise a preference for cold hardy varieties.

I also might try to graft a branch from the neighbor's tree to hopefully get a jumpstart on getting it into bloom.

beeone, I agree with you about the -cold dry and windy. Fall planting works well in moderate climate, and you are sure to get the variety you want. I planted a 4x4x10 potted Ambrosia pear last fall. The central leader has grown 50" already, along with trained scaffold branches. Its tied to a stake and I just pinched the tip to slow the growth and let the branches harden. Pear tree growth slows down considerably as they mature.

I'm never sure what to believe about the horticultural advice in my state. The person making the recommendation may have been speaking from experience at over 7,000 feet in the Siberian region of the state, or may have been in one of the more hospitable regions. So I try to take what makes sense & just note what doesn't.

Sometime I may try fall planting, but probably with something I won't mind losing. My brother got a bunch of scotch pine trees last october from a neighbor who had grown them in 12 or 16 inch fabric pots in the ground, they were at least 8 feet tall and had major roots going out of the tops of the pots. The big roots were hacked off to get the trees out of the ground, and we planted them. Much to my surprise, he has only lost one tree so far. He did keep them watered all winter and has done a good job of keeping them damp so far this summer. I didn't think there was any way a tree that big would survive the winter and into the summer with a root mass the size of a house plant. Always something to learn.