[HN Gopher] In Defense of Bradford Pear (2021)
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In Defense of Bradford Pear (2021)
Author : nkurz
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-01-09 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thefruitexplorers.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thefruitexplorers.com)
| rthomas6 wrote:
| I don't care. They fucking stink in the spring. They don't smell
| like "sperm", they smell like rotten fish. There must be a gene
| that lets some people smell it but not others.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Yeah, I can't smell them but my wife can. That was on her list
| of reasons why we had ours taken out. I supported the decision
| because it was growing like crazy blocking sun for everything
| around it and was expected to split at any time.
| simonsarris wrote:
| I was really hoping for a defense of the Bradford pear.
| Specifically, a defense of the criticisms levied against it.
| There isn't one here.
|
| People don't like them because the fruit is inedible to humans,
| they spread everywhere, they smell like sperm, and they are
| generally the mark of housing developments whose landscaping can
| only be described as lazy and uninspired. Worse, when planted by
| lazy people and improperly pruned in its youth, the natural
| growth pattern learns to it getting relatively easily damaged by
| storms. Without pruning, the limbs at about 8ft grow into each
| other, creating cracks, which make them highly susceptible to
| splitting at approx 20 years of age. If you search for "Bradford
| pear split" you'll find hundreds of photos.
|
| This article has a lot of information about the utility of the
| rootstock for grafting, and history, but does zero to address
| _why people don 't like the trees._ It does address the smell,
| but only to complain that people complain about it. What's the
| point of calling this a defense? It's just a history.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Grew up with like 20 of these around my backyard. It was my
| primary chore half the year to cut and stack them.
|
| When dried properly, they burn crazy well though.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Don't park under one, in November.
|
| Just sayin'...
| floren wrote:
| I recently parked under a tree at my in-laws and came away
| with my car utterly covered in sticky rotten fruit... after
| googling some pictures of the bradford pear, I think that's
| what got me!
|
| It's disgusting stuff, sticky as hell, stinky, and gets
| wedged into the soles of your shoes.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sounds like it. It looks like an incontinent buzzard
| suffered a disappointing series of bowel movements over
| your car.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'll say I'm fond of mine. I live in just such a lazy
| development, and my tree does a nice job of shading my front
| window.
|
| I especially like the one day in early spring when it flowers
| but it looks like snow (until I put my glasses on).
|
| I have it professionally cut back every decade or so, and the
| tree has survived almost 40 years. Eventually it will die and
| I'll be really sad.
|
| Not much of a defense, I suppose, except to say that I don't
| find its smell too noticable. It's lazy landscaping but it's
| nice enough for me.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Is there any precedent for using existing rootstock for
| grafting at a large scale on publicly-owned trees? E.g. I know
| you can also graft che trees onto osage orange, but I've never
| seen it done in a large public park with lots of osage orange
| trees, only by rare fruit hobbyists in their backyards.
| nkurz wrote:
| I think your criticism is mostly correct. The "defense" is
| mostly to say that the blame should be spread between the
| Bradford Pear, the birds that are spreading it, and the other
| species that are cross-pollinating it. It's a good history,
| though!
|
| There might be a little more of a defense in the follow up
| article, which isn't clearly linked from this one. It's still
| mostly a deflection rather than a defense, but it does included
| suggestions for intentionally cross-breeding it to make a
| larger, edible, less invasive fruit:
| https://www.thefruitexplorers.com/blog/making-
| callerybradfor....
| echelon wrote:
| These things are everywhere in Georgia, so they're hard to miss.
|
| If you dismiss the few weeks of rotting fish smell, they're
| gorgeous trees in spring. Huge white blooms, nice canopy. People
| still plant them despite the invasiveness (they'll definitely
| drop seedlings in your yard).
|
| The biggest problem with Bradford Pears is that they're
| incredibly susceptible to wind damage [1,2]. After about seven or
| eight years of age, they can be felled by even the lightest wind
| storm. These are a fairly big species, and they'll take out your
| fences or whatever else is nearby when they go. Don't park your
| car by them.
|
| [1] https://newgarden.com/notes/why-not-to-plant-a-bradford-pear
|
| [2]
| https://www.nashvilletreeconservationcorps.org/treenews/why-...
| carapace wrote:
| If you set aside the anti-anti-Bradford Pear rhetoric this is a
| pretty interesting article. If we don't treat "non-native
| invasive" species as enemies in a total war (a war we are almost
| certainly doomed to lose) then there are ways to take advantage
| of them, as the article describes towards the end.
|
| To me the longer-term question of how to (re-)establish a kind of
| equilibrium between natural evolution and humanity's interactions
| with it is fascinating.
|
| The late E.O. Wilson suggested setting aside half the Earth for
| natural systems ( https://www.half-earthproject.org/ ) which FWIW
| seems like a good idea to me, at least in theory (putting it into
| practice seems, uh, tricky though.)
|
| It seems to me that we're going to need to _garden_ much of the
| Earth one way or another.
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