My Harrow Sweet started with blackened blossoms as well. Next day I found dark areas along main trunk and branches. Pulled them out today.
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Yes Ellen exactly it starts like that and very quickly you know which disease we are dealing with. Fireblight spreads fast not half the branch is dead the other half blooming! Back to this picture the blossoms are a target of fireblight so I amputated all of that branch . My rootstocks are highly fireblight resistant. I graft high so I don’t lose entire trees.
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The progression of fire blight and blossom blast are quite fast. Both like wet weather. Fire blight weather usually wet and warm.
After a few days if nothing progresses beyond blackened blossoms, no oozing, no blackened branches, I’d say it is blossom blast.
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While riding around our pasture today I actually took a good look at this huge tree. Looks to be a Bradford pear eaten up with fireblight. It’s not far from my orchard. Another one that is closer to my trees has none.
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This is what happened to me this spring, and I’m fighting fireblight on most of my Asian pear trees. Shinsui, Drippin Honey, Korean Giant, Jilin, and Daisui Li all have multiple strikes. Only Chojuro, Shin Li, and Hosui have escaped so far. All the rain is making it really hard to spray with streptomycin.
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It’s my belief the streptomycin won’t help much after bloom time. In the past I’ve used an aggressive method of white vinegar mixed with water but it will damage the foliage on the trees. It did control the fireblight. Spraying with copper pre bloom will really help you. Stone Fruit Diseases are worse on wet years - #16 by clarkinks
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@drusket … I do sympathize 
. We pulled out my Idared this spring. Ida was one of my favorite trees. Despite all my nursing for the last several years she never recovered from FB. The adjacent Wolf River wasn’t affected. Hang in there and plant more trees!!!
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As of now this has been a year with low to no FB but as we all know this could change quickly. My new location gets more sunlight and I have discontinued a few varieties that were susceptible each year.
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Blight has mysteriously gone missing here for almost a decade. Before then it seemed like a constant battle of vigilance, pruning. This absence probably lured me into grafting e.g. Sweet Sixteen that some say is a true Blight Magnet. Stay tuned. I removed three old Bradford Pears about 8 years ago- maybe that did the trick.
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Fireblight is still here I see it every year. Every susceptible tree it strikes but has not killed in a long while. Would love to take credit for an effective fb control but I wouldn’t dare. Bacteria are not well understood and it’s my belief we don’t know the half of it. There is something that makes fireblight kill trees some years and I’m not sure what that trigger is. The last time I saw it really bad was a cicada year. Coincidence you might be thinking but I think not. We know plants and nitrificating bacteria work together. Why wouldnt fireblight have similar relationships? Think about ice nucleating bacteria that literally make fruit blooms more susceptible to injury than others at the same temperature. Lets look at the nitrification process and imagination the real fireblight process. "Nitrification is the biological oxidation of ammonia to nitrite followed by the oxidation of the nitrite to nitrate occurring through separate organisms or direct ammonia oxidation to nitrate in comammox bacteria. The transformation of ammonia to nitrite is usually the rate limiting step of nitrification."Nitrification - Wikipedia
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This is my first year dealing with FB. It hit almost every apple I’m growing in varying degrees. Ironically Crimson Crisp didnt take a hit at all. I’m still very new to the whole spray schedule so I didn’t do a copper based spray early. Next year I’m certainly not going to miss that. Has anyone noted suppression effects of bio fungicide products/ yeast based suppression? I’ve seen a few mentions of using active vinegar solutions too. I’m hoping with preemptive action and preventative measures I can avoid decimating my trees in the future.
D747 will hopefully give me an edge in the prevention.
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Sorry you lost your Ida. That bad fireblight year I had was five years back…the two moonglow pears were the worst, one died the next year and the other languished a couple more years until I cut it down. The others all survived fine. I got one bad fireblight hit on one tree this year, it is either an orient or pineapple pear, so I cut the whole top out of it and the rest is doing fine and is covered with fruit. Variety is important but luck and timing still seem to be a factor. Maybe time for you to try another Ida! I’ll cross my fingers for luck.
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Does this appear to be a fire light canker? It is in the location where I removed a branch either because it had fireblight or blossom blast. I can’t remember. I haven’t had fireblight in the past three years but this year it has shown up on my Sierra Beauty and a little bit on my Waltana as well.
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It does look like fireblight. Would carve that chunk out asap using a knife. If it was me after I carved it I would char the wood in that spot using a small flame. If it’s not done soon the fireblight will likely become systemic and kill the tree. The tree will attempt to recover on its own.
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Now that you found your source of fireblight you got to graft over everything but the trunk asap. I’ve done it many times. Graft a very resistant variety on top. Grafted over seedling Bartlett that were riddled with fireblight but you would never know now. Would recommend you try to tbud them with buds from your most resistant tree. You could use indoor paint to paint the parent trunk if it’s not fully barked up yet. That will help with sunburn and other things while your new tree is getting established.
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@clarkinks I’ve cut down two pear trees. I’ve severely trimmed my other pears and apples. I went down in the pasture today to see what can be done about this HUGE callery pear that has fireblight. I took these photos and don’t really know what some of them are. What are the orange things.
And this is the size of the tree.
And about 25-30 ft tall.
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Looks like Cedar Apple Rust galls:astonished:
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That looks like quince rust. Would cut that big old callery back to a trunk with a chainsaw and then graft your most resistant pear to it. Would paint the trunk completely with indoor paint with a little bit of copper mixed in.
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