Hi,
I just wanted to let all of your know about a great success I had in my orchard.
I live in SoCal and as you may have heard, we had a WET winter and a FOGGY spring and summer. (Stil foggy this week!!)
Anyway along with climate change and drought, for the first time in the 25 years since I have owned this property, I had a terrible outbreak of fire blight. It killed one of my apples and severely attacked the others and started going after the pears and quince as well. For two years, I pruned and pruned and could not stop its advance. This year, I used the biological, Agriphage. I used it exactly as the manufacturer recommended, on the blooms, whenever we had a break in the rain. I am so very pleased at how healthy all of my pom fruits are this year!! Even one of my apples that has fireblight in the trunk is doing beautifully!!
That’s really interesting. I remember reading about the product quite awhile ago but at the time it was not available at retail, only the product for tomato blight.
Given how effective phages can be against bacteria I wonder if a single application would be enough to provide multiple years of benefit…
I do not know, but, considering how healthy my trees are this year and that I still have some left, I will be using it again next year.
I could not buy it in CA retail. However, I got it mail order from Seven Springs Farm supply in VA. They were also really helpful when I asked questions about quantity to order, efficacy, etc. I will be trying the coddle moth biological from them next year as well.
As an added note, I tried Howler on my stone fruits to help against brown rot and peach leaf curl. The peach leaf curl was so bad on my nectaplum, that it totally defoliated, barely grew and did not bloom. I was very sad that it I
Did not help since it was only a three year old tree. It is alive and well, but I lost an entire year of growth. We had HEAVY FOG this year like I have not seen on the property in the 25 years I shave owned it.
Here is a newer tread on agriphage for fire blight - looks like it works as a cure after strikes. Sounds interesting, I’ll probably try it if I get problems with fireblight here in northern Florida (just starting a new orchard).
https://groups.google.com/g/cider-workshop/c/07FNhxYLGKM
I hope this turns out to work as well as strep. Its pretty new so there does not seem to be a lot of published data out there yet. Here’s what appears to be a decent evaluation done by some of the top people that work on fireblight. I don’t have acess to the full article so I can’t see the details. They state that control ranged from 0 to 83% across trials. Hoping my yard wouldn’t be the 0% deal.
I’m skeptical that it can cure FB that has already set up shop inside the wood, but I’m not a plant pathologist.
Multisite field evaluation of bacteriophages for fire blight management: incorporation of UVR protectants, and impact on the apple flower microbiome
Kristi Gdanetz, Madison Dobbins, Sara Villani, Cory Outwater, Suzanne Slack, Darlene Nesbitt, Antonet Svircev, Erin Lauwers, Quan Zeng, Kerik D. Cox, and George W. Sundin
Fire blight, a disease of pome fruits caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora, has become increasingly difficult to manage after the emergence of streptomycin-resistant strains. Alternative antibiotics and copper are available; however, these chemicals have use restrictions in some countries and also can carry risks of phytotoxicity. Therefore, there is growing interest in biological-based management options, with bacteriophage (phages) showing promise, as these naturally occurring pathogens of bacteria are easy to isolate and grow. However, there are several technical challenges regarding the implementation of phage biocontrol in the field as the viral molecules suffer from ultraviolet radiation (UVR) degradation and can die off rapidly in the absence of the host bacterium. In this work we assessed the efficacy of Erwinia phages and a commercial phage product for blossom blight control in the field across multiple locations in the eastern United States. In these tests, disease control ranged from 0.0 to 82.7%, and addition of a UVR protectant only resulted in significantly increased disease control in 2 of 12 tests. We also analyzed microbial community population changes in response to phage application. Changes in bacterial community diversity metrics over time were not detected, however relative abundances of target taxa were temporarily reduced after phage applications, indicating that these phage applications did not have deleterious effects on the flower microbiome. We have demonstrated that biological control of fire blight with phages is achievable, but a better understanding of phage-pathogen dynamics is required to optimize disease control efficacy.
In cheese making we had to rotate bacterial strains for culture to prevent phages from settling in and preventing the cultures from growing. A phage that affects one culture strain wouldn’t affect another so likely there is a primary fire blight strain that this phage can affect, but cases where it is not effective are likely when an area is dominated by an alternative strain of fire blight bacteria. Over time they will probably develop additional phage stains to target a greater range of fire blight stains.
Can you publish the link to the study? I can’t find much useful info.
WSU has done a lot of work on alternatives to strep. They mention Agriphage in table 4 of their study
Looks like Blossom Protect is the current organic standard for FB management without antibiotics.
Agriphage in this trial was only marginally better than control and if given with surround, it doesn’t appear to work at all
That is disappointing
Blossom protect, however, was only just slightly inferior to streptomycin and performed much better than control
Found this current video that summarizes the results of many FB trials conducted in different states.
WSU has been very active in researching alternatives to Antibiotics for FB.
I believe the presenter mentioned that Washington State grows 15k acres of organic apples…
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I stumbled on another current video from WSU that discusses the current FB research on pruning.
They examine stub cuts, sanitizing tools and the typical removal of 12-18 inches below the infection with results produced through trials in their desert climate and in wetter climates too.
Brasil has banned similar (fungal) products due to their ability to infect hives and spread though pollinators.