Growth: A growth size survey centers around tracking the growth rates of pears. The minimum growth is 0.017 per day, and the optimum is 0.020 or more. Growth rates are used in conjunction with another size survey to determine the size of pears at the time of harvest. I have been measuring Bartlett’s, Anjou’s, and Bosc pears. For Anjou and Boscs, you measure a single, double, and triple for each farm. Fresh pack Bartlett’s are thinned to increase size during harvest due to the earlier harvest date (summer pear). So, for the size survey, you measure two singles and one set of doubles; for farms that aggressively thin (remove one pear out of a double or two out of a triple), you would measure three singles.
Bartlett sizing: Throughout a single block of an orchard, you take 25 measurements of random pears on each side of the tree (North, South, East, West). You input the numbers into an excel document that will calculate the projected size of the Bartlett’s at harvest.
