PDA Posts Information on Callery Pear Ban

Harrisburg – in November 2021, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's (PDA) Controlled Plant and Noxious Weed Committee voted to list Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana) and its cultivars as a Class B noxious weed, effectively banning the propagation, growing, sale or distribution of the species in Pennsylvania. Callery pear is also know widely as Bradford pear.

As with the previous ban on barberry, PDA is phasing in the enforcement of the ban according to the following schedule:

• Winter 2021 - Callery pear is added to the Controlled plant and Noxious Weed list as a Class B weed.  
• February 2023 - Letter of warning would be issued to any plant merchant selling Callery pear, providing a date in February 2024 after which any remaining inventory would be subject to a destruction order. 
• February 2024 - Stop Sale/Destruction orders issued to plant merchants selling or distributing Callery pear.

PDA is also accepting applications to exempt certain sterile cultivars of Callery pear from the ban if those cultivars have proven to be sterile and cannot reproduce.

For more information and to obtain a copy of the application for sterile cultivars, go to the PDA website.