The problem sounds like bacterial infection "psuedomonas". Most asian pears have resistance but a few like 'Hosui' are most susceptible. 'Hosui' can even be killed here anywhere west of the Cascades but most of the time it lives through it. The best cure is going with varieties more recommended for here and 'Hosui' is not one of them. I'm embarressed to say that I've had Hosui in my yard for 10 years and it is the only non-bearing tree most of the time. I finally removed it from below the graft and regrafted with OHxF-87 pear interstem that I picked up recently at the HOS grafting session.
Can we know what kind yours is and if it has ever fruited before?
I have 4 varieties and Hosui is one of the infected ones. Shinseki and Seuri are also infected. All 3 varieties bore small amounts of fruit last year, their second year planted here. Hosui bore about 2 dozen ripe fruit, the other 2, less than a dozen each.
The fourth variety is 20th Century (Nijisseki) and it has no sign of the infection, but it's also in a different part of the yard with different exposure. It has been planted here for 3 years and bears profusely.
All the trees were bought as 1&1/2" or larger caliber and are growing strongly, so they are old enough to be bearing. The Seuri flowered profusely and then dropped all but small 6 fruit, which didn't ripen properly and went bad in storage.
Young trees are most susceptible. If they make it this year you should be okay as long as you choose to prune your trees after the spring rainy season which psuedomonas tends to favor. It's interesting to see Shinsieki being infected because it was one of the ones touted for our area. I removed my Shinsieki a few yaers ago due to poor performance but it wasn't as bad as my "Hosui" (ie. not to be confused with "Kosui", a better performing variety).
My good performers are 'Ichiban', 'Nijsieki' for the asian pears. Usually my 'Yoinashi' asian does well and for some reason last year was more delicious than usual. The only other true pear tree I have is 'Orcas' which does well and it always tast great. I don't spray anything.
i've been noticing blackened buds on my earliest blooming asian pears - i was attributing the damage to the ridiculous frosts/snow/hail/freezing rain we've been having for the first half of april. i was seeing it on individual popcorn stage flower buds though - not the entire fruit bud (prior to swelling and pink stages). could your damage be weather related?
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