After a five-year phase-out period, the Callery pear tree will no longer be sold in Ohio starting on Jan. 7.
“It will be officially illegal to sell Bradford pear, Callery pear in Ohio,” Dan Kelly of the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s Division of Plant Life told The Center Square.
The process started in nurseries across the state.
“It’s a species that, over the years, we’ve figured out that it really spreads profusely by seed," Kelly said. "And in particular, I believe by birds eating the fruit."
Kelly said the fruit is small, closer to the size of a crabapple.
“You can see them really grown up all over the place in any disturbed areas that are not mown or culled,” he said. “They come in, they grow very densely, and they essentially crowd out native species and really kind of make it undesirable for normal native wildlife."
In the spring, the pears bloom and have nice-looking white flowers. When in bloom, they can be spotted along roadways and riparian areas along rivers – or anywhere some disturbance has happened over the years. Then, the seed gets spread, and they come up dense, Kelly said.
The phase-out period allowed the Department of Agriculture to let everyone know the ban was coming, but also for nurseries to come up with alternatives, which they have been developing.
“For whatever reason, I think it’s the kind of form of the tree; they have a real tendency to split limbs," Kelly said. "They’re pretty brittle trees, especially when they get a little bit bigger."
That’s one of the reasons they’ve fallen out of grace in the industry, Kelly said.
He said the state doesn’t want species that contribute to the problems of invasiveness that alter the local ecosystem sold here anymore. No process to evaluate the different species is defined in the department’s rules, other than it has to use science.
Kelly said they use tools like risk assessment, which resemble a survey in which the department asks questions about a species. Scoring systems have been developed by the USDA and internationally. Some have been adopted and adapted for local use on both terrestrial and aquatic species.
During annual meetings, an advisory committee examines a long list of potential plants that are invasive species, adding or even removing them over time.
“Any science that gets submitted to the group is evaluated, and then recommendations are made from there to the director of agriculture,” Kelly said.
He said the committee has a proposed rule that’s not final, dealing primarily with aquatic species and some terrestrial species that are being vetted.
