Ask Dr. J. | Bradford Pear Trees

​What’s all the hoopla about Bradford Pears?

There is a lot of talk about the Bradford (Calgary) Pears these days and someone asked what all the hoopla is about.  So I decided to try and answer that question, “What is all the hoopla around this tree species about?”
Before I get into the “hoopla” I’d like to provide a bit of background.  Being a tree lover of sorts, I often wondered why we had so many in the first place.  Well, as you might imagine, the government was trying to help! First off, the French priest, Joseph Marie Calgary, sent samples of the Bradford Pear tree from Asia (China and/or Korea) to European botanists. It was then imported to the U.S. by the USDA, in search of disease-resistant fruit trees. The Bradford pear was released to the public around 1963.  It’s a shame we were looking abroad when everything we needed was in our native forests! Other than the fact that I hate these trees, one of the great detractors of Bradford Pears is they overtake native habitats and beat the dickens out of our native forests.  
Bradford pears are invasive and provide minimal value to our communities and environment. They are thorny and as they grow they split and splinter, especially the larger ones. This is because the branches are heavy, but the tree’s thin limbs are unable to support the weight of the branches, especially if there is a snow load or little puff of wind. 
The other reason to eliminate Bradford Pears is they are inhibiting our native forest’s ability to grow on fields and farms.  There’s a two to three-acre plot of ground across from my tree farm in Lebanon/Mount Juliet. Historically, once a landowner stopped bush-hogging the fields, around here it would have regenerated in our native Eastern Red Cedar. The Cedars would have been packed in there, but the stronger trees would have overtaken the weaker trees and the landowner would one day have had a valuable forest.  Today that field is packed full of Bradford Pears, the only value there is for the dozer operator who may be lucky enough to take them down! Let’s take those Bradford Pears down, I’m all for that! 
Once they split, you might as well cut them down. If you do cut one down, you’d better treat the stump, or you could use the hack and squirt method used by foresters to take out trees without cutting them down.  One of our reforestation/restoration projects was overtaken by Bradford Pears! I had estimated around 30% of some areas of the tree canopy were Bradford Pears. Green Interchange hired a contractor and they hacked and squirted the Bradford Pears. It was a beautiful thing! Within weeks we saw the trees begin to die back and now six months later, they’ve been eradicated and the natives we’ve been planting have been released (aka more sunlight, nutrients, and water) with much less competition.  
I like to refer to Bradford Pears as a “noxious tree” because what these trees are doing to our native forests makes me sick!  I hope you help me rid our great state of TN of these trees and plant natives to restore our urban and rural forests.

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Learn more about our organization: GreenInterchange.org


About: John McFadden (PhD) is CEO of Green Interchange a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization whose mission is to plant trees and establish and sustain natural systems for healthier communities, economies, and quality of life. He can be reached at [email protected].  


Reference:
Calgary Pear, MO Department of Conservation. ​