When I left the dog out this morning she had to detour around this. I'm thinking to much weight from all the pears and the rot in the center of the limb. I'm guessing the tree is at least 50 years old or more.
That's too bad. I've had a much smaller tree break a whole bunch of branches (keiffer pear) because I let it bear too many fruit. Will you cut the whole thing down and start over or just keep an eye on it ? Looks like a chain swing or something at one time.
Probably cut it down after the bosses flowers are done. It is a keiffer pear. It has lots of bad spots and is semi hollow so it needs to go. We left it grow for the bees in the spring when it would blossom. Not sure what the chains were for. To small for a swing. I used them to hang a bird feeder on.
I rake them up in the fall and take them down back but never saw the deer bother. Had my camera set up and never saw a deer. They like my sweet corn better .
My grandmother had two pear trees in her yard and she had regulars that would come by for snacks. She loved watching them.
I used to clean up a lot of apple drops for a neighbor. They also had a couple small pear trees so I'd take them. The deer would eat only a few of the pears. Apparently didn't come back for seconds.
Thanks for the info. One of my earliest memories is eating pears from my grandmothers deformed pear tree. It got knocked flat in the hurricane of 38 (I think) but never stopped growing. Just took off for the sky again. Wouldn’t doubt if it was sprayed when I was real young. Later on not. Some years they were great, some years not. And always competing with assorted critters. I think the raccoons used to get em.
I've used it for wood turning and it is pretty good. My parents old pear tree was pretty tall and we had a fruit picker wire basket on a long bamboo pole. Lots fell when they were ripe and the yellow jackets would get them. Yellow jackets getting soused on rotting pears was not fun. We did have lots of pear sauce made up in the fall and frozen for the winter though.