apple/pear variety and disease indentification help

Here's the pear tree

I wouldn't worry too much about the neighbour's apple tree. A really scabby tree might be a bit of a pain, but the fruit in the photos appears pretty healthy (i.e. no signs of scab), although some of the leaves could be showing symptoms (others may be able to confirm this).

I have an extremely scabby, large Bramley tree in a field next to my garden. Many of my trees suffer badly from scab, with over 50% of the fruit badly blemished, but I can't prove this is due to the neighbouring tree. Fungal spores can blow for miles on the wind.

Spots on the leaves is fairly common - especially as the leaves start to die in autumn.
Only the third picture would concern me; it looks like canker (Nectria) but on a variety that is fairly resistant and therefore the wounds don't get too large. But not all varieties are resistant to canker.
Nectria and Phytophthora cankers are probably the biggest tree killers in the apple world. Nectria canker mostly attacks above-ground; Phytophthora canker mostly attacks the rootstock at or below ground level.

Common varieties (and common rootstocks) tend to be more susceptible to disease than less common varieties, mostly because diseases tend to specialise in attacking just one variety or just one family line (e.g. Cox and many of its offspring are susceptible to canker).
There are so many trees of (say) James Grieve that have been around for so long, that the pests and diseases have had decades to evolve and many thousands of trees to exploit in a variety or micro-climates. Those old trees harbour diseases that are expert at attacking that variety, and scatter spores on the wind which can travel for many miles.
More unusual varieties tend to have less of a reservoir of old sick trees of that variety from which to acquire diseases. Hence many of the curious-named varieties that I grow tend to be very clean and healthy looking.
Triploids - of which I grow many - also tend to have stronger disease resistance through a combination of 50% more genetic material among which resistance genes may be present, plus their noticeably higher vigour and less pips per fruit needing to be fed (pips are very demanding on resources, so the less pips a tree produces the more resources it has to defend and repair itself from pest or disease attack).

My main concern is anything spreading. My plan was to really, "go for it" this Autumn and plant a few varieties, in different forms and rootstocks and see what happened. Just worried it might be undone by things floating about on the wind that are beyond my control. I'll learn a bit and gain a some knowledge and experience to do better in the future. This year is an experiment to satisfy my curiosity. It's all down to this forum and all the interesting threads I've been engrossed in over the past week. Compulsive stuff! The family have mentioned how I never bother with the internet at home, but now I'm never off it. Always loved eating fruit and tasting non supermarket varieties at fairs and markets, just never considered growing any myself. Greenhouse and allotment was all vegetables and herbs for everyone, as I'm the only fruit enthusiast in the house. Hopefully, that will change!

forgot to add, any ideas on the varieties, or all they a bit too "common and non descript." Might help with any pollination aspect in my choice. They seem to fruit quite well in her garden.

thanks again.

One thing I've particularly noticed is that reading trials about "modern" varieties (most of which bred either for scab resistance or for the looks/taste of the fruit) it strikes me that a majority of them seem to be very susceptible to canker.
It seems to be nothing unusual for a quarter of the trees (on early-cropping dwarf rootstocks) to not even begin cropping before they are killed.

As for trying to keep them canker-free without even so much as the organic regimes......

So I'm not a fan of most modern varieties because they haven't stood the test of time.
Only those with a century or more of spray-free "backyard" growing experiences (in varied soils and climates) have truly proven their worth by surviving whatever nature throws at them. Most of those that can take a beating and bounce back are triploid.

The pear tree has a clear case of pear rust. This is a highly infectious disease, and you are right to assume any pear tree you plant will also get it. Prevention is best achieved by cutting down your neighbour's infected pear tree, along with the juniper trees that are also certainly in the vicinity and which provide the over-wintering host for this infection ... I expect that is not possible!

Pear rust is relatively new to the UK, perhaps the result of global warming. There is very little data on resistance, and it may be that no UK-grown varieties (traditional or modern) are resistant. If you plant a pear tree and it gets infected, the best advice is to remove the infected leaves quickly - if you catch it soon enough you might be able to avoid denuding (and weakening) the tree.

Don't let this put you off planting a pear tree though, pear rust is not necessarily fatal and even badly infected trees will keep going quite nicely if fed and watered, and if the infection does not occur too early in the season.

I don't entirely agree with this. There is no doubt that triploidy gives many advantages in terms of disease-resistance. However, that aside, I don't think you should rule-out modern apples just because they don't have a century worth of field testing behind them. In fact you could find that the opposite applies. Modern apple varieties tend to have been exhaustively field-tested in multiple climate zones over a period of decades, and there is a mass of detailed comparative data available to potential growers about their precise performance. In comparison there is often very little hard data about the old traditional varieties, just a lot of (possibly conflicting) word-of-mouth experience.

You can take one of the apples to an apple identification event if there is one near you, often they're a part of Apple Day - the usual thing to take is two or three very typical apples and a twig with a leaf or two. If you know when the tree was in blossom that helps, too.

My pears all seem to get a few spots of rust most years. I haven't noticed any of them being more (or less) prone to it, but it's a very minor problem for me. In the last couple of years slugworms have been the most damaging pear-leaf pest.

The trials and the orchards are with full spray routines. If a backyard grower plans a full spray routine and full tree management then that's fine, but most modern varieties seem to quickly lose any resistance once out in gardens, neglected.
Jupiter is about the toughest and most disease resistant of the modern varieties - but Jupiter is triploid too.

I've basically ended up with a load of triploids* because they are the only ones which have managed to tolerate poor soil, droughts, aphids, fending-off disease attacks, a couple of harsh winters, grass competition and no spraying.
Natural selection in my punishing conditions is proving that triploids are the toughest and most disease resistant.

*
I am adamant that some varieties - such as Edward VII, Laxton's Epicure are triploid. They have the classic large, dark, thick/leathery leaves with an oval shape and with unusually large/attractive blossom and few or freakish pips.

When you get your trial orchard up and running, plant some trees in your shallowest, least fertile soil with grass up to the trunk and don't give the trees any attention for ten years (no feeding, no watering, no spraying, no pruning).

Or look back through history at the long-lived varieties and see how the majority are triploid.
Can you name as many proven diploids which are know for long life as the proven triploids?
I can think of no long-lived diploids. I can think of many long-lived triploids (many of which I grow because they are all that is capable of surviving here).

The research programmes run by university co-operatives will include a range of trial plots, in different climates, and with different management regimes. Don't forget that the rationale for many new apple varieties is to *reduce* spraying requirements, so they won't be using "full spray" routines.

I'm not disputing the value of triploid varieties, you are preaching to the converted on that one. However there is very little hard data on many of these varieties, whereas there is a wealth of data on the performance of new commercial varieties.

You have adopted what might be called a "no care" regime, and you live in a sunny but very dry climate. It is a scenario that probably applies to many community orchard projects, where the initial wave of enthusiasm might not always be sustained over the longer term with regular care and maintenance. It's interesting to see that generally only triploids on vigorous rootstocks can cope with this situation.

However it should not be confused with the "no spray" regime which I think many gardeners follow, which means they still water and feed their trees and look after them to a greater or lesser extent, and generally the trees are on dwarf or semi-vigorous rootstocks to keep them to a manageable size. Modern disease-resistant apples perform very nicely in this situation.

Very useful advice orangepippin, much appreciated. Whilst my 4 half -standards in a "not ideal conditions" was always going to be a risky experiment, I had hoped to minimize the chances of out and out failure. Part of my thinking was to go with some of the older varieties that had stood the test of time, but availability and a finding variety I would actually like to eat, was making it difficult. I'm still torn between the 2 poles of older/newer and am in danger of dithering until everything is gone, and I've missed my window for getting something in the ground (I know the bare-root period has a long way to go, but wanted it done in November (garden goes into hibernation at Xmas, as do I.) Still thinking.....and deliberating. So many ideas and so little time to think about them. Waiting for some inspiration, a Eureka moment, or failing that a now-or-never deadline. Sorry, this is straying away from "feeling fruity" to "feeling confused and bewildered." Will think about it at lunch, over an apple or two.

I often use a wine analogy. Think of the traditional apple varieties as being like wines from an old French chateau, gloriously unpredictable, wonderful flavours ... but sometimes the reality does not match the romantic image. In contrast modern apples are like "new world" wines. No romance, but up-front attractive flavours that most people will like. The obvious solution is to try both!