Pear Tree Disease - can you help?

charlesrebecca8_fvPoCe

Hi

i have a 10 year old pear tree in my garden. It has not bourne fruit for several years. This year it has obvious signs of disease. Lower leaves are turning yellow with brown spots and dropping off. The tree is healthy at the top and looks good - but it is loosing a lot of leaves at the bottom. What might this be? How do I treat it?
Any suggestions welcome
Thanks

BobTheGardener

It's probably scab, which affects both apples and pears:

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=81

I find it is more of a problem on trees which are stressed in other ways, such as drought or lack of food.  All you can really do is prune out badly affected twigs and branches and rake up and dispose of all leaves and fallen fruit at the end of the year.  If you can add a mulch of well-rotted manure and/or garden compost in a circle of about 1m diameter or more on the ground beneath the tree, this will feed the tree and help keep grass and weeds away from the area (fruit trees can't compete well with grass etc. growing at the base.)