Pear Cathedral: Description And Characteristics Of The Variety, Advantages And Disadvantages, Planting And Care Features + Photos And Reviews

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 22:26

Pear Cathedral: description of the variety and recommendations for cultivation

Many gardeners want to grow pear trees, but find it difficult to choose a variety. Each variety requires different maintenance techniques and is susceptible to diseases, pests and climatic conditions differently. For those who want to consume delicious fresh pears in the summer and not particularly worry about their tree in winter, the Cathedral variety is suitable.

Content

• 1 Description and characteristics of the variety
• 2 Advantages and disadvantages of the variety - table

• 3 Landing features

  3.1 Video: the nuances of planting pears

• 4 Tree care

  • 4.1 Watering
  • 4.2 Soil care

  • 4.3 Cropping

    4.3.1 Cropping Techniques - Video

  • 4.4 Fertilization
  • 4.5 Preparing for winter

• 5 Pests and diseases and their control

  • 5.1 Table: Diseases and Control Measures

    5.1.1 Photo Gallery: Diseases Specific to the Cathedral

  • 5.2 Table: pests and control

    5.2.1 Photo Gallery: Pests Attacking the Cathedral

• 6 Collection, storage and use of crops
• 7 Reviews

Description and characteristics of the variety

The mid-summer variety "Cathedral" was obtained by breeders S. P. Potapov. and Chizhov S. T. at the Moscow Agricultural Academy. This pear was originally intended for cultivation in the Central zone, but its frost resistance is sufficient to withstand the climate of colder regions.

A tree of medium height, with a dense conical crown. Branches with smooth gray bark grow straight and are relatively sparse. Straight shoots are red-brown in color. Oval leaves are green and medium in size, with a smooth surface. Fruit wood is, as a rule, simple ringlets and young shoots. The pear blooms with large white flowers.

You can start harvesting when the fruits turn yellowish.

Fruits are green-yellow, medium-sized (average weight 110–130 g), with glossy smooth skin, slightly bumpy surface. When fully ripe, the pears acquire a light yellow color with a faint red blush.

Fully ripe pears look very appetizing

The pulp of the fruit is white, sweet and sour, has a medium density, slight oiliness and a mild aroma. The sugar content in the fruits of the Cathedral is not too high - 8.5%.

Advantages and disadvantages of the variety - table

Advantages	disadvantages
early maturity (the first 2-3 dozen pears can be obtained from 3-4 years after planting); regular good yield - 35–40 kg per tree; high frost resistance - withstands a drop in temperature to -30 o С; scab resistance.	small fruit size; unsatisfactory keeping quality (only about 2 weeks); average transportability.

Landing features

Cathedral is very demanding on the quality of the soil. She feels best of all on fertile sandy loam and chernozem soil. If the predominant substrate in your area is sand or loam, you need to take measures to improve it and apply organic fertilizers.

Do not plant in damp areas. If the site is low, find a higher elevation for the pear. Drainage can also be applied.

Pears are rarely self-fertile, and Cathedral also needs a pollinator tree growing nearby. In this capacity, varieties are suitable:

• Lada;
• Children's;
• Chizhovskaya.

Planting pears can be carried out both in spring and autumn. Spring planting is recommended for regions with early autumn frosts and takes place in April - early May. In autumn, plant should be 25-30 days before the onset of frost, usually in October.

The planting pit prepared in the fall should be filled with organic fertilizers (2-3 buckets of humus, rotted manure or compost) and minerals (140-150 g of potassium sulphide or 0.8-0.9 kg of wood ash, 75-85 g of ammonia nitrate, 0.9-1 kg of superphosphate). Such supply of the seedling with nutrients increases its resistance to diseases, promotes the acceleration of the entry into fruiting and makes it possible to delay the application of fertilizers in the next 2-3 years after planting. A stake must be driven into the center of the pit.

Buy only a healthy seedling - with flexible twigs, live buds, whole and shiny bark, intact roots and root collar.

The further development of the tree depends on the correct planting.

Planting sequence:

1. Place the seedling in the hole. Make sure the roots are spread out.
2. Cover the seedling with soil. Sway the tree slightly so that the soil fills in all the gaps between the roots. At the same time, compact the fill soil with your foot. Be careful not to rip the bark off the trunk.
3. Tie the seedling loosely to the stake, pour three buckets of water over it. This contributes to the correct planting of the soil and the tight adhesion of the soil to the roots.
4. Re-tie the tree tightly with an 8-loop. Such tying prevents the tree from rubbing against the stake in the wind.

Video: the nuances of planting pears

Tree care

For normal growth and development of the pear tree and to ensure high yields, an optimal amount of moisture is required in the soil. Also, the plant needs to be formed and fed.

Watering

Excess or lack of water adversely affects the condition of the foliage and the entire tree. Trees require the maximum amount of moisture before and during flowering, as well as when leaves appear. If it is not enough in the early spring period, most of the leaf buds do not open, they remain dormant. The development of young leaves is slow, the growth of shoots is weak. If the lack of moisture in the spring-summer period is accompanied by excessive heat, then the general condition of the trees worsens. In summer drought, the lack of fluid supply to the root system causes the suction roots to die off. If the required amount of water is not accumulated in autumn, the wood and roots begin to dry out, and frost resistance decreases.

The pear should be moistened regularly, but in moderation, proportioning the amount and volume of irrigation to weather conditions. Usually mature trees are watered 4–6 times per summer, spending 50–70 liters of water per tree. Young trees are moistened more often: in the first year - once a week, then once every two weeks with a consumption of 20–30 liters of water per tree. Sprinkling gives good results, but you can also pour liquid into small temporary furrows.

Soil care

During the first year after planting, the soil in the trunk circles and aisles should be kept under black fallow. From the second year, you can use the soil between trees for growing vegetables, mustard, buckwheat. You should not plant late varieties of cabbage, because of them, the autumn digging of the earth is delayed. You can not plant corn - it dries out the substrate greatly and inhibits the growth of the pear tree.

The trunks should be kept loose, weeds should be weeded out regularly and mulched. Peat or peat compost (20–25 kg per 1m ²) is used as mulch, which is laid with a layer thickness of 6–8 cm.

Pruning

Pruning is necessary to remove dried and diseased branches, improve crown illumination and form a tree. For pear trees, formative pruning is not necessary as they tend to naturally form well.

Pruning can help form a wider crown

It is advisable to carry out sanitary and thinning pruning in March-April, before bud break, or in the fall after leaf fall. The branches should be cut at the base, leaving no stumps (they interfere with normal wound healing). When pruning, more than a quarter of the total crown volume should not be removed.

In addition to normal pruning, ovary rationing may be required. Often the number of ovaries formed on the tree is excessive.

The tree spends a large amount of nutrients on extra fruits, most of which do not gain the required size and quality. As a result, the annual growth is too weak, an insufficient number of flower buds is formed (the next year's harvest will be small), and the winter hardiness of the tree decreases. The best time for fruit rationing is June (at the end of the natural dropping of the ovary). First of all, you need to remove the underdeveloped and damaged ovaries; in each inflorescence, you need to leave 1 fruit so that it is provided with adequate nutrition. On average, after thinning, you should leave 1 fruit per 20-30 leaves.

In the case of a poor harvest, rationing of fruits is not performed. To facilitate this work, you must first shake the branches to remove the dead ovaries that have not yet fallen off themselves.

In the summer, a special type of pruning can be carried out - pinching, designed to stimulate the growth of shoots. It should be carried out in mid-June, until the shoots are woody.

Pinching is also called summer pinching, it consists in removing the growth point from strongly growing shoots above the 3rd-6th well-developed leaf. As a result of the procedure, the growth of the shoot stops, but after 2-3 weeks, the shoot starts growing again from the lateral bud, which should be pinched again.

Cropping Techniques - Video

Fertilizer

To ensure the normal general condition of the tree and high-quality crops, the soil must be enriched with organic and mineral fertilizers.

Weathered peat, peat composts with the addition of slurry, humus, semi-rotted manure should be added to the trunks. It is recommended to use not just organic matter, but its mixture with minerals. To prepare it:

1. Lay a 12-15 cm organic layer.
2. Potassium chloride and superphosphate are poured on top, then organic matter again, and so on, until 4-6 layers are laid.
3. To ensure the impregnation of organic matter with a solution of minerals, the whole mass is stirred and left for 4–5 days.
4. The mixture is applied 1 time every 2-3 years, starting from the third year after planting (until this time, the nutrition of young trees is provided with fertilizers applied during planting). The rate of fertilization per square meter of the trunk circle: 3-5 kg of rotted manure, humus or compost, 100-120 g of superphosphate and 20-30 g of potassium chloride.

Nitrogen fertilizers are used every spring at the rate of 20–30 g of ammonium nitrate per 1 m ². It can be applied dry - scattered over the soil surface and repaired when digging up the soil.

Organic matter and mineral fertilizers are applied for digging

If fertilizing is applied in liquid form, then a furrow is laid along the outer part of the trunk circle and a solution is poured there (2-3 g of nitrate per 1 liter of water). In addition to saltpeter, liquid fertilizing is made with diluted slurry and poultry droppings. Manure should be diluted with water 3-4 times, and droppings - 10 times (dry - 20 times). 1-1.5 buckets of solution are applied to 3-4 m of the furrow. If the soil is dry, you need to water it with clean water first. Nitrogen should not be added to late autumn feeding.

If vegetables are grown between the trees, the fertilizer rate per 1 m ² is:

• 6–7 kg of humus and peat compost;
• 50-60 g of superphosphate;
• 25-30 g of potassium chloride;
• 100-110 g of wood ash;
• 35-40 g of ammonium nitrate.

Preparing for winter

Pear Cathedral has a high frost resistance and does not need insulation for the winter. But young trees (first 2–4 years) should still be sheltered from the cold.

When cold weather approaches, the stem of the seedling needs to be tied with spruce branches, and the surface of the ground near the tree should be covered with a layer of manure. It should be laid at some distance from the stem to avoid rotting of the bark. Spruce branches protect not only from cold weather, but also from mice and hares.

You should not huddle the stems of young pears, as this reduces winter hardiness. Piping against rodents should be carried out only in the late autumn, when the temperature is lowered to -2-3 ^of C when the wood tissue has hardened.

Adult pears also protect against rodents by using spruce branches or other thorny and inedible materials.

A plastic tube can be used to protect against mice and hares

Pests and diseases and their control

Cathedral is resistant to scab, and relatively resistant to other fungal diseases, but there are some diseases that are dangerous for this pear.

Table: diseases and control measures

Name of the disease	Signs of illness	Control measures
Moniliosis	characteristic brown spots of rot on fruits, on which spore rings then grow	Removal of affected fruits from the tree and from the soil. Spraying with a 5-7% solution of urea (or iron or copper sulfate, potassium permanganate, or Bordeaux liquid) before bud break.
Cytosporosis	many rough black dots on the bark	Compliance with pear agrotechnics. Pruning and burning all diseased branches. Treatment with a solution of copper (2% concentration) or ferrous sulfate (3% concentration).
Black cancer	rapidly growing reddish spots on leaves and bark; drying and falling of damaged leaf blades; darkening and cracking of the bark.	Spraying with Bordeaux mixture after flowering. Disinfection with copper or iron sulfate. Pruning and destruction of diseased branches, leaves, fruits.

Photo gallery: diseases characteristic of the Cathedral

Moniliosis or fruit rot is spread by contact between fruits and branches

Affected trees die without treatment

Black cancer is one of the most dangerous diseases

Table: pests and control

Name	Pest manifestation	Control measures
California scaled	gray or black bumps that release brown juice when pressed; drying out of infected branches.	Thinning of crowns, cutting out heavily damaged branches, removing dead bark from boles and branches. Pest control of planting material. Spraying with pyrethroid or organophosphorus preparations.
Hawthorn	holes in the leaves; wintering nests from leaves glued together with cobwebs.	Spraying with BA-2000 or Bitoxi-Bacillin during the growing season every 7–8 days. Spraying with Bicol during the growing season with a 0.6-1% solution (“pink bud” phase and immediately after flowering).
Aphid	deformation of leaves, stalks, petioles; drying out of young shoots; colonies of insects on the affected parts of the tree.	Single spraying during the growing season with 0.2% Fitoverm solution. Double spraying before and after flowering with BI-58 Novy, Danadim, Kemedim.

Photo gallery: pests attacking the Cathedral

Massive scabbard infestation is very dangerous, especially for young trees

After the invasion of caterpillars, nothing remains of the leaves

Affected leaves roll into tubes

Collection, storage and use of crops

The fruits of the Cathedral ripen by mid-August; harvest usually ends by September. The fruits are considered suitable for picking when their color turns greenish-yellow. They begin to remove pears from the outer part of the crown, first of all from the bottom, since when they are collected from the upper branches, they can break off and damage the lower ones. Care must be taken when handling to avoid dropping or crushing them. You should also be more careful with the stalk, it must be bent upward until it breaks off from the branch, and not pulled towards you.

It is best to put the pears to be harvested in a harvesting bag and a plastic basket. This container can be conveniently hung on the branches of a tree and the fruit can be removed with both hands.

Since pears of the Kafedralnaya variety are stored poorly, they must either be quickly eaten fresh, or processed into dried fruits, compotes, jams, candied fruits, juices.

With the help of a fresh pear, you can decorate the cake in a very original way.

Reviews

Cathedral pear has good taste, is resistant to cold and diseases, but its fruits are not stored for long. The variety can be grown by gardeners of the Central Russia.