Fireblight and limb bending?

General Fruit Growing
1

I have 30 heirloom apple trees planted on a hillside all of which have been planted in the last 2 or 3 years. For the larger, and therefore more vigorously growing trees, I tied down limbs just prior and during bloom this spring. Fireblight strikes were prolific on 6 out of the 15 or so trees I had tied down branches.

This may not be causal since FB could be attacking the trees that put on the most new growth. However, i thought it was worth asking others experiences here since there were no instances of FB last year when I didn’t tie down branches and FB strikes only on trees this year with tied down branches.

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2

I see alot of posts this year on social media… the consensus is that ‘its a bad year for fireblight’ so i guess u get good years and bad years?

May be informational for some

3

I don’t think tying down branches will create more fireblight strikes. You may see more strikes on trees that have tied down branches but that would be from the high vigor of the trees. You usually end up tying branches on trees with high vigor and high vigor/growth makes trees more susceptible to fireblight.

Also what cultivars and rootstocks are the trees that had fireblight strikes? What about the trees with no strikes? If the trees with bent branches have high susceptibility to fireblight you are going to see more fireblight strikes. Rootstocks also can alter fireblight susceptibility.

4

I suspect the trees most likely to have limbs tied down are the ones that are putting on the most growth/susceptible to FB.

My trees are almost all on M111.

I had wondered if wind, hail, and other forms of trauma increase likelihood of FB, then perhaps limb tying might also be a form of trauma.

Regardless, next year I plan to spray streptomycin during and immediately after bloom and hope for the best.

5

Ditto for me

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