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hi
My conference pear tree is growing 'suckers' (hope its the correct term) from the root it's been grafted onto.   I have chopped them off at ground level but the growth is so vigorous that it seems to be pushing the tree over.  The tree is still quite small (6ft) and  produced a bumper crop of pears last year so i really don't want to lose it.

Does anyone have any advice on how i can tackle this.

I inherited the tree with the plot so have no idea what the root stock is.

many thanks

Pakaba

I've been told to snap them off, instead of cutting them  :)

Sounds like that you are not going back far enough.

Clear away the soil to the suckers source then rip it/them off.

Have a look in here; http://tinyurl.com/ygfsf9

This might sound really daft, but won't hurt to try and has worked for me. I had same problem caused by me hoeing too close to trunk and that sort of starts the suckers off growing.
Tear them off as TeeGee says (if you can, some are very tough and if you can't pull them, cut them very close to trunk) then get some elephant tape and cover the area they are growing from. I left it on for a full year and took it off half way through second year. Only got a very small amount of re-growth of suckers, I assume it was the lack of light that did the job, so maybe other ways of blocking light might help.

Most pears take years to fruit (there is an old saying that you plant a pear tree for your grandchildren). Pears that fruit when they are very small are on dwarf rootstocks. All dwarf rootstocks need staking to prevent the tree from falling over because their roots are inherently weaker. I would suggest a diagonal stake because this will not damage the roots as much. Suckers just need to be snapped off but be careful not to damage the root they branch from.

My experience has been mainly with Concorde pears, which are very like Conference. The rootsock is Quince A, I've kept them at around five to six feet tall at present - the trees are around 8 years old. I decided not to stake, the soil is pretty heavy clay and they started to fruit about 3 years ago. So far, so good (except that some b*gg*r pinched most of the pears this year )

Hi thanks for tha advice.  :)

My tree may well be concorde as well, the pears looked like conference, but so do yours JennyM (thanks for the fab photo :) ) is there any way i can tell the difference?

When we took on the plot we thought we had 3 trees, an apple, a pear and something in between them , it turned out the 'inbetween tree' was actually suckers coming off the pear tree :o.  we chopped all the growth back but where stumps' have been left they are sprouting.  I like the idea of covering the sumps.  I will try and chop them even closer to the ground and will then try to cover them.

I have put  a stake in, very badly though, I think i need some help with it and maybe more than one,

thanks again ;D

pakaba

Concorde are later than Conference, but look very much the same. It's a good pear; I have a tree that I planted two years ago; it was covered in fruit last season.

Quote from: pakaba on January 17, 2007, 07:02:06
...My tree may well be concorde as well, the pears looked like conference, ... is there any way i can tell the difference?...

It may be my imagination, but Concorde look a bit lighter in colour to me - there's not much in it, and I agree with Robert, it's a very prolific fruiter, with a good taste.