I have am wanting to get some scion wood off of a pixie crunch tree I know the man has had trouble with fire blight on the tree in the past. What I am wondering is can fire blight be spread from scion wood that does not show signs of being infected? Or should I leave these tree alone?
If the wood looks healthy there shouldn’t be much danger. When you get it scrub the cuttings with a 10% bleach solution. That will take care of any surface bacteria. A canker should be easy to spot. There is still probably a small chance of infection inside the wood. But the bacteria is widespread in the USA. It’s likely in your orchard just waiting for good infection conditions. So these cuttings probably won’t increase the risk of an outbreak.
I haven’t had FB in my orchard in west Texas in 40 yrs. But this past spring a buddy here got clobbered. So the bacteria is around just waiting for that rare wet spring.
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