Pear Tree - only two tiny pears

[WhatAWasteOfOranges]

My new garden has a pear tree that has two tiny pears that aren’t seeming to grow.
How can I encourage more growth? Cut back? Leave? Mixed info online. I would say the tree is around 6years old

How big is the tree? Mines only just starting producing fruit for this year. I noticed one pear on it today and normally we get quite a lot.

Yes you need to prune it in the winter and feed it in the spring. It needs good drainage and a sunny spot out of cold winds.

It might have been affected by spring frosts this year. Sometimes they only have a good crop every second year.

Is there grass around the trunk ? If so remove .

Thank you! It’s about 5ft.

Base covered in grass - will remove today. It gets all day sun but is quite exposed so may be subject to winds. Am I right in thinking I should plant another close by? Or can a pear tree thrive alone?

Is it self fertile? If not you may be missing a pollination partner for it. We made this mistake when we took another pear tree out and are now going to get a new friend for our pear tree.

My mum has pear trees and usually full of pears. Absolutely none this year. We joked that the trees have had covid!

I’ve had no pears this year at all

All the leaves on some of the branches have gone yellow and black, see attached photo. Does this give any indication of anything?

@WhatAWasteOfOranges

Thank you! It’s about 5ft.

Base covered in grass - will remove today. It gets all day sun but is quite exposed so may be subject to winds. Am I right in thinking I should plant another close by? Or can a pear tree thrive alone?

You need to remove the grass from a circle around the trunk about 1 meter in diameter. You can cover this with bark chips if you like to reduce weed growth.

Remove the grass VERY carefully ( with a trowel and not a spade ) as your little tree will have shallow roots. Ideally you would not dig at all but simply kill the grass with a thick layer of mulch. Try to keep it away from the tree trunk - don’t make a volcano shape.

The tree will grow better without the fierce competition from the grass for food and water.

Also you will be less likely to damage the tree in your attempts to cut the grass.

To identify problems with plants we have recently started using an app called Picture This. You take a picture of a leaf and not only will it tell you what plant the leaf belongs to (a pear tree in this case), it will also make suggestions as to what is wrong with it.

Last year we had a glut of apples and about six pears. This year the pear tree is dripping with fruit, the earliest flowering apples are quite good and the later flowering ones are poor.; I think they were hit by frost/cold/wind while in blossom. 0ur pear tree flowers early.