prune this pear?

[Native Hunter]

I took pics of two pears today - one I trained and one I just let go. You can decide which you like the best:

 

[cutman]

Which one produces better? And do the deer seem to have a preference?

 

[Native Hunter]

Which one produces better? And do the deer seem to have a preference?

The pruned pear is a good pear, but the one not pruned is a wild pear I dug up in a field and transplanted. I basically just forgot about it and let it go. It doesn't have good fruit, so this spring I'm going to top work it and get something growing on it that the deer will eat. I will remove some of the smaller branches near the bottom and graft to multiple limbs about 5 feet from the ground.

The only pruning I really do on pears is removing the bottom limbs up to about 4 feet, and I will sometimes train the lower scaffolding limbs to grow outward by clipping the inward growth. After that I basically just let them grow. Many of my pears are so tall, you would need a bucket truck to do any pruning, and I see no need in doing that.

 

[Native Hunter]

One thing I can tell you for sure - which one is easiest to mow around without getting knocked off the mower....

 

[Fish]

One thing for sure. There are not two orchardists who would ever prune any tree the same way. We all have our ways......
Pear trees are particularly painful for me.

 

[Nebraskaz71]

I think after trimming all those lower limbs my plan is just to pinch off anything below cage height and then occasionally trim some of the inward branches, otherwise just let it do its thing.

 

[swat1018]

I trained mine the first year by wedging a small piece of wire between the leader and limb, forcing it to "spread" a little. If that makes sense.