Care:
- Pears do best with a small amount of fertilizer early in the year. Heavy doses of nitrogen will make the tree more vulnerable to fire blight. Fertilize lightly in early spring of the second and succeeding years about 2 weeks before bloom. In moderately fertile soils, use ammonium nitrate at 1/8 pound or its equivalent per tree, multiplied by the number of years the tree has been set. Use less if you have highly fertile soil. If shoot growth on the tree is more than 12 inches in a season, use less fertilizer the following spring. If the leaves are pale green or yellowish in midsummer, add slightly more fertilizer the next year. Be careful applying fertilizer around your pear trees. Too much nitrogen promotes succulent growth, which allows fire blight disease bacteria to enter the tree's tender young shoots more easily.
- Use spreaders to encourage horizontal branching and earlier fruiting spurs.
- Keep young trees weed-free, and water well during dry spells to help the roots get established quickly
- Also, pears require several months to harden off in the fall. High nitrogen levels after mid-summer delay this hardening-off process. If your pear tree is located in a lawn area, cut back on turf fertilizer applications when you feed your lawn so as not to give your trees too much nitrogen.

Pruning:
- Dwarf pears are often trained to a central leader and semi-dwarf and standard-size trees also yield best when trained to a central leader. In an area prone to fire blight, you can prune your tree to multiple leaders. That way an infected leader can be removed while the others keep growing.
- Pears are trickier to prune well than apples because all their branches grow nearly straight up. This growth habit promotes weak branches and dense foliage around the center of the tree, which encourages fire blight, fungus diseases, and pear psylla.
- Prune regularly, though generally very lightly.
- Fortunately, pears are easier to train than most trees. Start in early summer of the first year. Use wooden slats with the ends notched in a "V" to hold them in place.
- Pears bear their fruit mainly from terminal buds on short branches or spurs. Mature trees need only light pruning during the dormant season, mostly to thin out unfruitful, diseased, or crowded branches.
- Avoid heading back cuts during dormant pruning since this will result in new, long, unfruitful shoots.

Pollinating Pear:
- Pollination can be a problem with pears because bees are not partial to their blossoms; pear nectar contains less than 10 percent sugar, compared to nearly 50 percent in apple nectar, and pears often flower when it's too cold (below 55F) or wet for the bees to fly. To make matters worse, pear blossoms are fertile only for a short time.
- You may need a beehive when your trees are coming into their bearing years for consistent fruit set. Move it to within 50 feet of your pear trees when blossoming starts.

Harvesting:
- Don't let pears ripen on the tree. Harvest them when they reach a mature size but are still hard.
- Early pears will ripen at room temperature in a few days to a week. Storage varieties will keep 1 to 2 months or more in a cool (4,5C/40F), dark place.

Pear diseases:
1. Fire blight, unlike most fruit tree diseases, is caused by a bacteria that can be spread from tree to tree by bees, aphids and other insects. The bacteria mainly attack twigs and young shoots.
Symptoms: Affected branches wither and turn black or brownish black, as if scorched. Most branch tips, once infected, wilt rapidly.
Once inside, they multiply rapidly and begin to work toward the roots. An orange-brown liquid will ooze from pustules on the tree, particularly on warm days. This liquid contains a great number of bacteria, which may be spread by rain or insects.

2. The codling moth is a key pear and apple pest. The first adults appear at the time blossom petals fall. The adult insects lay eggs on young fruit, twigs, and leaves.
After feeding on the leaves briefly, the worms enter the pears and eat for about a month. Although the fruits will be ruined that year, you should try to intercept the larvae after they leave the pear and descend the trunk to reach the soil, where they will finish their life cycle. A strip of burlap about 6 inches wide and covered with Tangle Trap (a sticky, trapping substance) can be tightly wrapped around the trunk and stapled together to form a formidable and usually lethal barrier.