I have several. This year they are particularly loaded. So much so that lots and lots of branches are breaking off. Big ones and little ones. When do you trip pear trees back to help prevent this? How far back do I trim them when I do? Thanks

Look at your trees right now and you can pretty much see what needs cut. I generally cut my really long limbs half way back. I also top mine about10ft high and thin out limbs that are crossing or rubbing eachother. Just look at how its handling the weight of a full l ioad right now abd you can pretty much tell where to cut your limbs

When do I cut? After they fall? In the fall or winter? Spring?

Winter

If you have some limbs you think will break, it wont hurt it to cut them back now. As a rule tou prune in the winter

Cool. Thanks. I got lots to trim

You could also knock about 1/2 the pears off now.

Yessir. That would work too. Your pears would also get alot bigger

True. I may have to to save some limbs. Had a very small persimmon do it yesterday. Broke off low on the trunk. Hoping it will recover

Just grab the tree and give it a good shake

If you can reach them, knock them off.

I have a Bartlett and a Moon Glow and they both produce super heavy crops each year. However, they are bland tasting and go to waste every year. How do you get them to be sweet enough to eat?

Basic slag

Guess I’m gonna don a helmet today to save some of these limbs from breaking off too short.
I do t do anything to mine to make them sweet. I have two varieties. One is the hard ones good for cooking and canning and such. The other eats like a nice apple. Very sweet and soft

I do that sometimes when I think mine has too much weight on it. But you would also be surprised at just how much weight those limbs can tolerate.

It seems like every other year I have to knock off acorns off my Sawtooths.

My Bartlett pears are about all gone for this year. Yes,they put on so many that a few limbs broke off,and some just bent over.
They were small because of so many,but I did pick lots of them before they got soft and fell off.
I peeled and cored them. Cut them up and cooked them in a medium syrup. Half water half sugar. Just enough to cover the pears. And a few spoonfuls of cinnamon. About 20 minutes till they turned clear. Then I hot packed them in pints and water bathed them for 20 minutes. They turned out good.
We also have an attachment for out kitchen Aid mixer that cores and slices apples. It worked good on the pairs so I put some of them up like that for pies. It don't peel them,so I put them up with the peeling on. They did good as well.
I found the recipe in an old Kerr canning book.