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Pears Michigan STICKING with pears T Favorite for pollinizers, is one of the state's largest producers. While some envision a comeback for pears in the eastern United States, Rood doesn't see it in the cards. The infrastructure is mostly gone. There's a place for a niche producer like himself but not much opportunity, he said. Rood isn't planting any more pears. "You plant pears for your heirs," he quotes the adage about this unprecocious but long-lived tree fruit. But it's not just his age—83 now—that keeps him from planting pears. With 40 acres, that's big for an eastern U.S. producer. by Richard Lehnert He is still planting some fruit trees, and he's quite excited about some plum varieties that came out of the breeding program in Vineland, Ontario, Canada (see "Harovin Sundown pear licensed in eastern Canada" on page 26 of this issue). Rood has been working his same pear plan for many years. During the last three weeks of August, he sells 1,200 to 1,500 bushels a day. "We pick and grade the same day," he said, with about 15 pickers working and bringing pears to a small grading line. Some go to Gerber, sold by the ton for purée for baby food. Amish buy- ers in Minnesota buy his pears by the semiload for canning and farm mar- kets. The best pears go to vendors who sell them at farmers' markets around Chicago. He's about a hundred miles from Chicago, and lots of peaches and berries also leave southwest Michigan every day for those markets. The variety of choice is Bartlett, but Rood has found niches for others. Kieffers are used to make preserves, so that takes a few bushels every week. Bosc and Clapp's Favorite sell pretty well. One local brewer takes 600 gallons of Kieffer juice each year for making a special beer. "Pears are more rewarding than apples if you can get the trees raised," Rood said. He waits for California, the dominant pear producer, to establish the price, then he quotes prices to his buyers so they can plan accordingly. "I have to quote prices early and stick to them," he said. Pear expertise Rood, who received a doctorate in hor- ticulture from Michigan State University in 1953 and worked as a researcher for three years before taking over the family farm, is author of a peer-reviewed paper published by the International Society for Horticultural Science under the title, "Management Techniques for Pears in the Eastern United States." In it, he recounts his experience with pears. The major barriers to pear production here was a time when Michigan rivaled Oregon for third place in U.S. pear pro- duction, but a series of odd events ultimately brought out the bulldozers and reduced Michigan's acreage from 10,500 in 1970 to about 800 today. Today, those acres are scattered over more than 200 farms—and Paul Rood, Jr., with 40 acres of Bartletts interspersed with a few Bosc, Kieffer, and Clapp's in Michigan are, in order of importance, fireblight, pear psylla, and the lack of infrastructure, Rood said. He has learned to deal with fireblight. He built a special pruning platform that gets Removing fireblight strikes is often not enough. In this case, the bacteria has invaded the larger limb, which must be removed. workers above the trees, where they can see the strikes from above, and they prune them out with a pole shears or, for larger strikes, a pole chain saw. 20 SEPTEMBER 2011 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com