How to keep a pear tree healthy!??

[Lunar*Fey]

My grandma moved a few years ago and she has a pear tree in her "new" yard. She wants to be able to pick and eat the pears but doesn't know how and I would like to give her organic methods. She has picked some and cut around the many hard black/brown spots. They tasted good to me :). But she we found a little white worm in one of the hard black spots eww...and also the crows keep eating them off the trees. She would probably also have to prune the tree, she can't reach most of the pears!
can anyone give me a way to keep the bugs away, and the crows...and any other tips about maintaining a nice pear tree organically???

thanks!

[juliebove]

This is something I'd like to know too. I have two pear trees. One produced no pears at all last year and this year it is loaded, but many of the pears look bad. I think this is because we had some high heat. It was during this time period that they got the spots such as you describe. One of my apple trees seemed to have "sunburned" apples as well. The tops of the apples (the upper part getting the most sun) got brown and mushy like they were cooked! My neighbor said I need to use some sort of spray but I don't want to do that.

[protea]

Hi Lunar*Fey,
Sounds like your grandma's pears might have 'pitting', caused by a calcium deficiency - the worm might not have anyting to do with the spots. You would need to provide the tree with some kind of calcium treatment.
As for the crows, you might need bird netting over the tree (after it has been pruned). The tree will need to be severely pruned during the summer to keep it small - however, be carefull not to prune out next year's buds. Look at this website under 'gardening':
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/answer.php#garden

Juliebove,
Lack of proper pruning might also be the problem with your trees. Sounds like your apples were definitely sunburned - we are seeing a lot of that in Oregon as well. Growers here put on what they called a 'mud' spray - which is basically just a white kind of mud that protects apples from sunburn. The spots on the pears sound like 'pitting' which indicates a calcium deficiency. Also see the website above or:
http://ext.wsu.edu/
You can also contact them by phone.

Hope this helps!
Protea

[juliebove]

Oh yes, I know my trees were not properly pruned. My husband and dad got ahold of them and started chopping branches off at random. I do have a book that explains how and when to prune pear trees. They refused to look at the book. Gah!