Flowering and fruit set in the Packham's Triumph pear

Abstract

Field observations were made of flowering, fruit set, and fruitlet drop on the self sterile pear variety Packham's Triumph. All flowers were hand pollinated on the day of anthesis so that lack of pollination was not a limiting factor. In general, the flowers opened in order from the lowest to the terminal flower in the truss in approximate daily succession. During the first three weeks after petal fall, fruitlet drop occurred mainly from the higher axillary and terminal positions in the truss, and during the next three weeks there was some thinning out of fruitlets in the lower axillary positions. At harvest, most of the remaining fruit occurred at the second and particularly the third positions from the base of the truss. Fruit set was directly related to the number of flowers in the truss.