Discover Top Posts Tagged with #pears

Pollination in New Zealand.

Aotearoa/ New Zealand was home originally only to solitary native bees. These were not ideal for pollinating European crops so bees were introduced. Red clover was needed to fertilise pasture, and it needed bumblebees with their long proboscises, so they were imported from UK.

They are also much better at pollinating pear and apple trees than honey bees also introduced, as the latter prefer flowers with more vivid colours. Bumblebees operate at wider temperatures and weather conditions too.

We have established a population of Bombus terrestris, the most common type here by importing a 'hive' from a commercial breeder in Hawkes Bay to Wairarapa. And now each year we find a new nests under buildings and in old burrows. It is good to see the bumbles active in early Spring for pear pollination when the honey bees are hardly stirring.

This is a photo of a bumblebee on our perry pear blossom.

#orchard #wairarapa #aotearoa #pears #bumblebee

Fruiting spur on a perry pear. Pears are classic spur bearing trees. In spur-bearing trees, fruit is produced on short, knobbly modified shoots called spurs that develop off the main branches. The "close growth rings" (also called wrinkled rings) on a pear fruiting spur mark the tiny fraction of stem that the spur adds each season. These contrast to the much longer growth of the branch that adds a larger frame of branches to the tree each year, driven by the vegetative terminal bud. Apple trees are mainly my tip bearing but a few are spur bearing which makes them ideal for cordon or espalier training. My fav is Cox’s Orange Pippin. #biology #pear #perry #growth

#perry #pears #biology #botany

Perry pear trees often have colourful and odd names such as Startlecock, Stinking Bishop, Mumblehead, and Merrylegs.

Mumblehead is named for the "mumbling" or incoherent speech that often follows after too much drinking. Startlecock is actually a combination of word. ‘Startle’ from surprise at the astringent taste if you bit into one and ‘cock’ some farmyard humour from its shape resembling a male chicken. It is also called Holmer after the village where it was first recorded.

What is your favourite? #perry #cider photo - Startlecock - National Perry Pear Centre

#perry #pears

It’s easy to think all cider and pear cider is industrial given it is a tin and floods the supermarket shelf next to beer but there are artisan cider and perry makers out there trying to compete with the global companies. Key signs to look out for amongst the clever marketing is

full juice

wild fermented

single batch

barrel aged

harvest driven

and “not from concentrate”

And you can add to that “single varietal” and even “single tree”.

The latter especially as a perry. An old perry pear tree over 100 years of age can produce over 1 ton of fruit each harvest! And perry pear trees can continue to produce for several hundred years. Here in New Zealand we have very few introduced trees that age but I do know one one perry pear tree near Christchurch over 150 years old from which I have grafted scion wood to our orchard. This photo is an old eating pear tree in Carterton Wairarapa that must be as nealy old.

#cider #pear #apple #perry #tree