Lack of fertilizer would not cause the fruit to fall but there may be other reasons why fertilizing would (or would not) be appropriate.

Generally fruit will drop when the tree does not have the resources to support it (excessive fruiting for size of tree, etc.) or of they are otherwise damaged or diseased.

How much rain "is quite a bit"? That also would not be my first concern unless the amount was really excessive or drainage was bad. Since it tends not to rain at all here during fruit season, I can't speak to that topic specifically.

How big is your tree and how many pears does it have developing? A lot a fruit is maybe too much for a tree only in its second year..............

I'll try to take a picture and load it later. It's about 12 ft tall. The tree doesn't have many fruit. It had a lot of blooms, but I guess there was a late freeze that killed a lot because instead of developing, they fell off in my hand when I went to thin the fruit. I think the blooms were dried up and just fell apart when touched. Now there's only about 5 or 6 fruit hanging. I have a 20th century pear. I plan to put in a Korean Giant in the fall.

Pictures of pear tree

Patti,

As I look at the pictures of you tree, one thing came to mind. You do not have a base of mulch surrounding your tree but instead, you have gravel all the way to the base of tree.

How is your soil? Without the mulch there is no way for the microbes in the soil to work to your benefit. I would open up a 3 foot diameter mulch ring and place wood mulch around the base of tree. In your case, you hunch of it needs fertilizer maybe correct, i’d Go ahead sprinkle general fertilizer such as the 10-10-10 around the base and water it in really good.

Hope this helps.

My next door neighbor recently told me that our back yards were "filled". It is very rocky "soil" Almost all of the neighborhood has gravel yards. I'll give it some mulch around the base Thank you for the advice.