I have a pear/fire blight question for you more experienced growers, if you don’t mind. I have planted two pear trees this spring, Potomac and Shin Li, knowing that there are also many ornamental pears close by for cross pollination. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I’ve noticed that all of the ornamental pears are riddled with fire blight strikes this year. Knowing that, is there any advice for success with my pears? Are pears just not in the cards for me in my location? I’m in central Virginia, zone 7. Any tips for success going forward or recommendations on varieties to plant would be appreciated!
I’d scrap the idea of using ornamentals for pollination. None of my pears bloomed concurrently with the neighborhood Bradford’s or Cleveland’s.
I’m kind of intrigued by the fact that there’s ornamental pears with fireblight but you don’t mention being hit with it on your trees. If it’s true that your trees are blight free I’d stick with them for at least a while; some varieties are apparently blight resistant in some areas but susceptible in others, depending, apparently, on the timing of the bloom and such.
Good luck!
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Well, these new trees haven’t bloomed, so I believe that is why they are OK so far.
@speedster1 not blooming at the same time could be a blessing if the ornamentals are carriers. I didn’t see any fireblight last year (not that I was looking too hard) so I assume this is a bad year. I’ve only lived hear for 2 years, but the ornamentals (Aristocrat) are at least 16 years old, so I would think they’ve been hit before.
You will find that FB will be quite variable. Some years bad some ok. You will get many good harvests I’m sure. Choosing good varieties is key. Potomac should be great Shin Li may be a bit suspect. I think Ayers would be great for you. Moonglo and Dabney I’d bet will be good also. Magness is a great pear but can be tough to get good production out of when young. I hear awesome things about Harvest Queen and Harrow Sweet. If you want another Asian consider Korean Giant. Be ready to deal with FB. If you grow pears you will have it sometimes. Be ready to prune out FB strikes. Cut several inches below the bottom of infected branches. Consider spraying during bloom time. Some use Streptomyocin and some report good luck with Seranade. I think you will do good with your pears.
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Thanks @wildscaper Shin Li is mentioned as A J Bullard’s best fire blight resistant Asian along with Korean Giant according to Edible Landscaping. I would like to add Korean Giant and some other Euro’s as I go. I just didn’t expect to see foreblight already in the immediate area! Do you spray your pears and what do you use and on what schedule?
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There are several great pears with some resistance to FB so I would start with those.
The asians all are relatively worse than Euros so you may want to switch to all-Euro at some point. But, as was mentioned above FB is very fickle and its most important to go by what you actually are seeing on your trees. So, I would just wait at this point. Even prevailing winds matter, if you are upwind from those ornamental pears you are better off than downwind. Do keep the trees well-pruned so they are drying out quickly.
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@clarkinks and @scottfsmith thanks for the help. I guess its just wait and see. I don’t plan to spray anything if I can help it, so will monitor and prune. Don’t really expect issues until they bloom. The problem will be trying not to buy more trees before I can evaluate. Scott, we may be fairly similar in climate… Do you have any varieties you are particularly happy with?
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irby, I have not found bloom as big a deal as they make of it. My worst FB strikes tend to be after bloom. The disease is very location-dependent so that may be a factor in why. In general my apples have much more problems FB than the pears, another thing opposite from the literature.
My pears are mainly old historical varieties without fireblight ratings, unless you like a lot of risk I would stick to the standard ones. If you have patience grow Magness, it is exceptionally tasty but takes a very long time to fruit.
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Irby,
Like Scott said already Fireblight is very hit and miss. My apples get hit one year and my pears another. It hit one tree of mine this year which was a pear I grafted. It killed the graft and part of the tree and poof it was gone all within a day. The other pear graft 5’ away is untouched. The tree hit is a 3 year old callery pear rootstock. The big trees I sprayed with fertilome antibiotic so that may explain why it just hit a tree that had never bloomed that was Fireblight resistant.
Just wanted to say how much I’ve enjoy getting confirmation of my own experiences with fire fireblight being incredibly unpredictable. I’ve had trees get FB so bad they look like they were literally on fire all over and barely survive, and a same-type tree 5 feet away go untouched all season. Then the next year the untouched one almost dies from severe FB while the one hit so hard the year before goes untouched. But its not predicable enough to say they develop resistance or anything. Some trees get worse each year, others get better, and I can never find any logical explanation to why FB is so variable amount similar trees or even the same tree. In short, there is no other way to describe fire blight in my orchard than to say it is very, very random. Certainly some trees never get it and some get it every year, but for the rest of my apples and pears, it just seems to have no logical pattern whatsoever. and BTW…mine is often well after bloom, just like Scotts.
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Did the FB also kill the Callery rootstock or did part of it survive?
It is time consuming to do several grafts but by allowing a Callery rootstock to get bigger and grafting different varieties onto Callery limbs might prevent a total kill of the tree when FB strikes. It might just take out one limb that could be grafted over again. My one standard pear tree is on Callery roots and I let it get larger and then I grafted a few varieties to the individual limbs. These were FB resistant varieties so I really don’t know how well this idea would work but it does seem logical to me that it would.
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Auburn,
I graft several feet up on the rootstock. I’ve never lost a wild callery rootstock yet. These callery are very resistant.
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I can tell you I used fire blight spray religiously for an Ambrosia and a Flemish Beauty this year for the first time and also for the first time the Flemish Beauty is loaded with pears … never had any on that tree before. I don’t think the Ambrosia is as susceptible so it survived in other years.
I had a Clapp’s Favorite also but that was simply ridiculous with Fire Blight and I removed it.
Bottom line is that it only took maybe 3 sprayings to prevent F.B. so as for me, I recommend it if you’re worried.