I was harvesting pears and found this little beauty (pictured, right). I have a red pear tree, and 10 metres away a green pear tree. I鈥檝e had some green/yellow stripes on the red pears for the past few years, but this takes the cake. What鈥檚 going on?
鈥� The right half of the pear on the photograph looks mouldy and is likely to be infested by a fungus. It is coloured bluish white, has a dull texture and is in contrast to the sound, glossy red surface on the left.
But the sharp and straight delineation between the two halves is most remarkable. I think that this pear is a , which is sometimes found in fruit varieties that are grafted onto a wild stock, as your questioner has already observed in the past, having seen 鈥渟ome green/yellow stripes on the red pears鈥�.
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The graft in this case is obviously more resistant to the fungus than the original stock part.
Pieter van Doesurg, Retired biologist, Rijnsburg, the Netherlands
