Is this fireblight, or just stress?

General Fruit Growing
#1

I have a Chojuro Asian pear (OHxF 97 rootstock) that I planted this April as a bare root. It quickly put on a lot of growth, but a couple weeks after the new leaves emerged the tips turned black and burnt looking, and began to curl. I sent some photos to Stark Bros, and they told me it was fire blight and refunded my money instead of sending a replacement. I wasn’t so sure about their diagnosis, and said what the heck, let’s see what happens to it. But then I started worrying about it infecting my other trees, and after a couple weeks I chopped off the top 12”, (where all the black-tipped leaves were).

So, now it’s two months later, and my sort of abused little tree isn’t looking too great, but it doesn’t look like the same symptom as before. The new leaves look thin and kind of reddish. And a worrisome development, a nearby one-year-old apple tree has brown-tipped curled-up leaves. So I’m wondering,

  1. Did my Asian pear have fire blight?

  2. Is my apple tree now infected?

  3. Or are these both just different symptoms of inconsistent watering?

All my fruit trees are in an irrigated pasture (near the Rio Grande, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico). They get completely flooded in 2-4” of water every 2 weeks. In between waterings it gets fairly hot and dry. Soil is high pH, fairly clay-ey in the top 24” inches or so, but definitely not hard panned. Below 24” you hit sand. I watered the new Asian pear a little extra the week I planted it, but other than that it’s been on the same watering regimen as my mature trees.

Here’s the photo I sent to Stark bros of my Asian pear before I topped it.

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#2

This is what it looks like after I topped it. Leaves feel thin, and the color is kind of reddish

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#3

And this is the apple tree next to it. A few branches have these brown tipped leaves, mostly on the underside.

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#4

I am far from to be an expert, but I think this is just stress. Most of my young apples doing it now. But recently I had to cut two branches that I think was fire blight. It looked very different. Not just brown spots on leaves - whole branch looked wilted, you will recognize it when you see it. There is a death in it :grin:.

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#5

I think you need to water more than you have been. These
are young unestablished trees that need more care than
the older trees.

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#6

The new leaves being reddish is normal. My Chojuro and several other Asian pears I have display this trait. I do agree with @rayrose that it probably just needs more regular watering, especially if it’s really hot down where you are.

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#7

Great. Sounds like so far the consensus is the pear never had fire blight to begin with. :slight_smile:

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