Photo/Illutration Niitaka pears cut from trees before harvesting due to heat damage at Hashimoto Nashien in Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture (Provided by Tetsuya Hashimoto)

SHIROI, Chiba Prefecture—A pear grower here has decided to cut back on cultivation of the “king of pears” after three years of extremely poor harvests due to the intense summer heat.

Tetsuya Hashimoto’s pear orchard, Hashimoto Nashien, has grown the Niitaka variety for decades.

Popular as gifts because of their sweetness and large size, Niitaka pears are picked in September and October. Large ones weigh more than a kilogram.

However, in recent summers, their skin has often turned blackish and their flesh has become soft.

The fruit rotted on the trees or fell to the ground before harvesting.

This year, more than 90 percent of the Niitaka pears in Hashimoto’s orchard could not be harvested.

“We spend a long time growing them but our efforts go unrewarded,” said Hashimoto, 44.

“I made up my mind to reduce their cultivation starting next year,” he said.

In Japan, fruit-bearing pear trees were planted over 9,820 hectares in the 2023 production year, down about 20 percent from a decade earlier, according to agricultural ministry statistics.

The same year, 183,400 tons of pears were harvested, down more than 30 percent from a decade before.

A ministry official attributed the falling production to a decline in the number of farmers due to Japan’s aging population, as well as global warming and other factors.

Pear varieties harvested in autumn, such as Niitaka, are particularly vulnerable to high summer temperatures.

In 2020, 13,768 “agricultural management entities,” including companies and households, were growing pears, down nearly 40 percent from 2010.

Seventy percent of the managers of farming households growing pears and other fruits were 65 or older, up from about 40 percent in 2010.

Yoshihiro Takemura, an associate professor of horticulture production science at Tottori University, said global warming may force some pear production areas to switch to heat-resistant varieties.

The university is cross-breeding Japanese pears with Taiwanese ones grown in subtropical climates to develop varieties that can withstand higher temperatures.

Takemura said it takes several years from planting the saplings to harvesting the pears.

“We need to consider how much temperatures will rise in the future when determining varieties and locations suitable for cultivation,” he said.

Global warming is affecting other fruits, too.

Nagano Prefecture began shipping its original grape variety, Queen Rouge, in earnest three years ago.

The seedless grape is sweeter than the popular Shine Muscat.

But the skin does not turn as red as growers expect when temperatures are high.

At the Shinshu Uchiyama Noen farm located in the city of Suzaka, about two tons of Queen Rouge were cultivated this year, but about half remained whitish.

The variety takes on a reddish color when temperatures differ significantly between day and night.

The farm said night-time temperatures often did not drop as much as they would have in an average summer.

“The color has little to do with the taste, but we cannot ship them commercially,” said Toshimasa Uchiyama, who heads the farm.

The farm uses some of the whitish grapes for jams, jellies and other processed products.

A prefectural official in charge of pomiculture said other red grape varieties are suffering from similar problems.

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