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Lancashire, United Kingdom Gb

My pear tree in the summertime was giving pears which had white spots on the skin and were dark brown on the inside, with insects in the pear itself. What can I do for next year to stop this from happening.

Also the pears were very small and a small crop this year...how can I boost the crop for next year.

Please note this year I painted the bark at the roots with black paint as I was told this prevents ants from crawling up. Has this affected by crop.




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Never heard of black paint stopping ants, and bear in mind, ants only go on your tree if its infested with aphids - its the honeydew the aphids secrete that they're interested in, not at all interested in your tree, its fruit or its leaves. If the black paint you used was gloss, or oilbased, and you made an entire circle of it right round the tree, this won't have been very healthy. If it was water based, then it should be okay.
As for small fruits, this is more likely to be lack of water at a time when the fruits are growing, although I'm not sure you had that kind of summer up there this year.
Don't know what the white marks were on the fruit, nothing springs to mind re that, unless you noticed any other symptoms on the leaves or trunk, but the tunneling indicates probably codling moth - you can buy pheremone traps for these, so investigate early next year and buy one or two ready for early spring.

25 Oct, 2010

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