PEAR CULTURE IN ROMANIA AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Of the fruit species grown in Romania, commercial pear production is second among pome fruit and fourth among all fruit after plums, apples, sweet and sour cherries. As of 1989, pear orchards covered about 10,000 ha, 4.5% of the total area of fruit trees. The highest annual pear production was 117, 000 tons, recorded in 1983. Pear production is confined largely to areas having appropriate temperatures and soil conditions. The leading districts are: Arges (12%), Dimbovitza (7%), Bistritza, Prahova, and most of the hilly subcarpathian zones. Over 60% of pear production takes place in home orchards, and only 10% is produced in high density orchards with trees trained as palmette planted 4 x 3 m and grafted on seedling or quince with interstock.

Per capita consumption of pears is about 5 kg, aiming in the future to reach 7 kg. The present pear assortment includes 30% summer cultivars, 40% fall cultivars, and 30% winter cultivars. The important commercial varieties are Cure, Williams, Clapp's Favourite, B. Bosc, Napoca, Aromata de Bistrita, Morettini, Untoasa de Geoagiu, and others. Recently, new Romanian varieties have been named; Trivale, Triumf, Argessis, Daciana, Carpica, and Euras are propagated to be commercially grown.

The configuration of pear varieties propagated in nurseries during 1990–1993 is shown in Table 1. About 350,000 trees were propagated annually during this period, twice the average of 1980–1989. In the past 3 years, over 1,000,000 grafted pear trees were sold to private farmers. Although farmers' interest in pear growing has not decreased, during 1990–1991 Psylla spp. caused great losses in the pear orchards and in 1992 fire blight was first recorded in the following cultivars: Conference, Aromata de Bistrita, Trivale, Pastravioare, and Highland. In that same year, fire blight was found in Bulgaria and Greece. Accordingly, the major task of the pear breeding program is to find resistant or tolerant cultivars. At the same time, selection for late-storing winter varieties is needed.

At present, land is divided into small plots of 0.5–10 ha, with 6 million land owners. A deterioration of pear growing both quantitatively and qualitatively may take place during this period due to lack of financial support and adequate pest management. Hard times for pear growing