Fireblight? Possibly?

Western WA is not supposed to get any fireblight but i lost entire trees last year. And my Asian Pears are hit again

Someone mentioned this could be pseudomonas and not fireblight. Any ideas what this is? To me it has all the signs of FB.

@ramv ,
I would say fire blight. Blossom Blast (pseudomonas syringae), typically does not affect leaves esp. not branches. Your trees were all blackened.

I have had Blossom Blast, only flower clusters on the whole branch were affected. The branch was not at all affected.

These trees may be susceptible to fire blight begin with. Wet spring during bloom time is a problem for me. Almost all my Asian pears get fire blight but at a small scale.

@clarkinks, what do you think?

The branch certainly does look like fireblight i agree @mamuang.


Typically everything is black. Any strange weather there? Never heard of any place in the United States that does not get fireblight. How old is the tree? Is this its first year flowering? What type of pear is it? Can we see a photo of the tips of the other branches?

My tree was grafted in 2017. I think I got FB last year with the really warm wet spring. I thought I pruned or removed all dead branches but they clearly came back.

All my Asian pears were hit. Also most European too! I think I lost my Warren pear, shinsui, hamese. :disappointed:

Yes - fireblighty for sure. I think you have lost at least some of them - I’m sorry! I’m so scared of fireblight I tend to see it everywhere, so maybe I’m wrong, but others will have more to say and you should wait for them before you do anything permanent.

Can fireblight be transmitted by scionwood? I wanted to get few scions from a friend but he has FB there so I chose not to. He was adamant there is no risk however this is the last thing I want in my orchard so I decided not to take any risks

I would not take that chance either. I do think that if the scion were not showing signs of FB it would probably be OK because the new growth is a prime place for it to show up, but I just would not do it. It’s just not worth it.

How much of the trunk looks ok? Can you trim it way back? It looks like fireblight. It also looks like something else is going on there. Some of that damage is not fb.

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A local expert saw it and recommended I get rid of all my pear trees. I don’t want to risk my precious apples getting them.

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