Irby,
Those in the link I listed above are the varieties I recommend. I’ve not tried all of them. I still hit them all with copper this year even if they say resistant. The ones that bloomed as mentioned got antibiotic as well. In the case of a bad infection I use white vinegar and water 50/50 as a spray in addition.
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Clark,
Is your spray just vinegar and water?
This time of year I use vinegar and water only if I have a bad FIreblight infection. The vinegar and water will make you trees look pretty bad so don’t use if you have any other choice. Vinegar is an antibacterial but it’s also a mild herbicide. If the tree is crawling with Fireblight I use it. Pre bloom I spray fertilome antibiotic mixed with water. When the trees are dormant I spray liquid copper. Amputate infected branches several inches below the Fireblight strike. .
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Thank you, I have several trees that are bad. One Wickson is almost gone, and the other was virtually untouched. I just keep cutting then sterilizing pruners, and in a couple of weeks repeat. I will spray them this weekend.
Thanks for the details. I had read your thread listing the varieties but didn’t know if you were particularly pleased with any of them that you have grown.
This stuff … Fertilome Fire Blight Spray (powder)
The directions say to start spraying when the blossoms start to appear and keep spraying every few days while they’re out. Stop spraying when the fruit begins to form.
So for fire blight bacteria that enters through the flowers this appears to do the trick. Fingers are still crossed.
BTW, I used it on the apples also but they hadn’t shown a F.B. problem before anyway.
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… see response to irby.
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Just a thought about using antibiotics for fireblight- there is some concern about resistance being built up.
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I can attest the vinegar did not work at all for me. The only solution
for a major FB infection, is to remove the tree. Get rid of the source
that will surely eventually spread to your other trees.
Sorry to hear it did not work Ray. I’ve had it work for me or let’s say the Fireblight stopped after I used on several occasions. Fireblight is the ninja of the bacterial disease world. It strikes hard and fast and kills a tree before we even realized the magnitude of the problem. It hit the least one I’d have expected this year. Caught me completely off guard.
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Is @Lucky_P still on this forum? I have seen him say he doesn’t spray his pears and was wondering what varieties are the best performers. I imagine our climates are similar although you may not have ornamentals carrying the disease close by.
Thanks bubbabgone!
When it gets in the trunk, there’s not much you can do.
What surprized me is that it hit my healthiest tree that
had never shown any signs of FB before. I had put metal
limb spreaders on this tree, and I think the infection entered
in those spots.
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Ray,
That’s interesting it makes a lot of sense. I brought some problems on myself one year and pruned a sucker off at the base of the tree. The tree died when the Fireblight entered the pruning wound.
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So, does this rule out my plans for summer pruning to control size?
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Irby,
I would not touch those trees in the summer unless you need to. When you open a wound during Fireblight season you might be asking for problems.
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I didn’t admit to it at first, but one of these ornamental pears with fire blight is in my front yard 
. It’s 16 years old and at least 30 feet tall. After reading some of the grafting postings on here, I am trying to convince my wife that we can cut it down and graft some eating varieties onto it. If I were to cut it to a stump and graft to it, does a large tree like this eventually start to look like a normal tree again once the grafts grow out? I’ve been trying to find pictures to show her, but it’s hard to find.
Also, it’s amazing what you begin to see once you start looking for it. You want to know if these things are invasive? I’ve found 5 wild pears at the edge of the woodline on my property. They range from 8-12 feet tall. I’m thinking this could be an opportunity to gain some grafting experience with little at risk. They are possibly getting too much shade to fruit well, but I can try to clear around them a little. I know one of them had a few flowers on it this spring. It also got fire blight in those blossoms 
. I guess having them in the woodline will also make them accessible to squirrels and more insects. Are these good ideas?
You can show your wife this example of a 30 year + pear tree grafted with 2 new varieties - http://growingfruit.org/t/2016-graft-thread/4744/446
Or this - a 6 year old pear tree grafted with 3 new pear varieties in April:
Thanks, Jsacadura. It looks like the grafts would have the tree looking somewhat normal again by the end of the season. This is exactly what I was looking for to be able to show my wife. Now I have to start researching grafting techniques and the timing of when to do it.
irby,
I would recommend the type of graft i use to change varieties in trees with 4-5 years + that have a trunk or branches with a certain diameter.
I’m talking of Bark or Rind grafting. If you search on youtube you will find lots of videos demonstrating this grafting technique, like these 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrE2CkQHudI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoUrM_ZXoOE
I use a similar technique, just don’t like to use too long and skinny big scions like in the videos (3 buds max). I also prefer to graft only 1 or 2 scions if the diameter of the trunk/branch is not very big like you can see in the above photos. you can also leave a couple of branches of the original tree in the first weeks after grafting to help move the sap.
Here’s another example. It’s a wild apple from seedling that i grafted with Granny Smith about 3 years ago.
The tree in May of last year:
I now decided to cut the 5 main branches that where growing from the 2 original grafts and turn this single Granny Smith in a 5 variety tree.I left one branch of Granny Smith that i probably won’t cut totally because this variety is a good pollinator.
The new grafts in May:
The grafts in July:
I will try to post an updated photo of the “new” tree…
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