Is this fire blight on my pears? Your diagnosis appreciated!

General Fruit Growing
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I fear that my Apostle-series pear trees (John & Thomas) have a bad case of fire blight. Can someone confirm this, and is this the case on all branches that don’t have leaves? Some notes

  • No “oozing” that I noticed on any of the three trees showing this problem (two are pretty bad, one seems in pretty good shape)
  • Some branches have leaves dying at the top, others in the middle
  • Some affected branches are black, some brown
  • Some leaves are a bit black on the edges but otherwise don’t look too bad and I think that is just wind damage? We had some hellacious winds here a little while ago.
  • The two worst affected trees did not blossom at all this year.

Is this fire blight in the first place? Some fire blight and some of something else? All fire blight? I think I can only post one picture so it is a montage of four. Thanks in advance.

pears
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@DeKay

Unfortunately yes it is fireblight. See the characteristic shepards hook and black spots as if the spots were burned with fire.

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@clarkinks Thank you for confirming, but you’ve made me very sad in the process :cry:

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@DeKay

The fireblight has been very bad this year. Amputate what you have to. If it is a strike on the main trunk take a knife and carve it out.

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It it’s in the main trunk, the tree is likely toast. Unfortunately Fb is
a fact of life, when growing pears.

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