In 2002… I started my orchard with Early Mcintosh Red delicious and a short distance away the pink flowering crab.
I had other stuff too pears peaches plums… but for apples that was it.
About 3 years later the red delicious started blooming… got fire blight and despite cutting out strikes… it died in a couple years.
I planted a fuji in its place… and 2 or 3 years later it started blooming… got FB and died in a couple years…
I planted a Mac free in its place… exact same thing happened to it
At the same time all that went on… i planted two pears initally… same thing happenes to them… started blooming… got FB and died a year or two later… each time they died. . I replacd them again… 3 times I did that with 2 pears.
Around 2014 I quit trying…
In 2020… found a disease resistent apple list in the OGW catalog… and tried again… bought 3 of the later blooming apples from their disease resistent list.
This year…i cut all 3 of those down and hauled them off. So many FB strikes you would have no wood left if you pruned 8-12 inch below it.
Every scaffold branch had multiple strikes.
I will not invest a lot of time in apples going forward. Enough is enough.
I have a very similar attitude. I said in another thread that I’ve made peace with my decision to only at most spray zero/low pollinator risk things and that some things might die because they’re not suitable for me here. I’m hoping it will eventually give me a resilient orchard that is lower maintenance overall.
Sorry to hear that! Much tougher for FB down where you are. But like you said, there are other things that will grow well and give you a good harvest (including things that wouldn’t work as well up here in New England).
This explains a lot about my experience. I tried pancking over small strikes on many trees and cutting and santizing and freaking out. It didn’t seem to change much. Those trees that got some small strikes didn’t have much spread and no new problems.
On two trees that were of a different variety, small strikes took out the whole tree so fast it was like a blink. I cut affected branches off thinking I’d got it all and then it was in the trunk and the next thing you know I cut the tree down.
This year, I sprayed copper early then sprayed streptomycin at bloom on pears due to bloom+warm+wet. I think it helped. I could have done with 1 more spray; I had some blossom blast that have turned to strikes, but nothing like last year.
I also got hail last year that I think might have set up some entry for infection. But that is just a theory.