01/04/07 Being Competitive with Pears

During the recent Northwest Hort convention, the topic of remaining competitive in the pear business was tackled by a panel of guest speakers. Don Weippert from Weippert Orchards talked about how to get a pear block to be profitable. WEIPPERT: I think if you are going to grow a pear block today and have it pay for itself eventually I think you need to have the full canopy established by the end of the third leaf. That tree should fill its entire space at the end of the third leaf and in the fourth leaf I think you'd like to have production of 15 to 20 tons and I think that's pretty doable. Weippert says to get to that 15 to 20 ton level by the fourth leaf it's important to grow the tree 4 or 5 feet a year. He says that takes a bit of work on your part. WEIPPERT: I think you need to do a good job of prepping the soil and the obvious things like ripping it, fumigating it, if it needs lime. And then once you get the trees in the ground I think it just takes a lot of water and a lot of fertilizer and the fertilizer for me a good number is about 200 pounds of available nitrogen in that top foot. I think if you go over that I think you reach the point of diminishing return and can actually hurt yourself. Weippert also recommends a wire support system since he says a fourth year leaf tree simply won't support a 20 ton per acre return. WEIPPERT: The second reason you need wire, I think if we want to have all our fruit on a single plane and take advantage of different mechanical aids and maybe eventually picking, I think you have to have some sort of wire. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.