Oh, no. I recalled your Abbe Fetel loaded with fruit!! What a loss!!!
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Forelle, abate fetel , dawn, Dana Hovey (over 12 types in all) and many others were loaded with fruit. They have all been removed. Removing 2 trees out of hundreds is not a big deal it set me back 2 years on those two trees. Now i can go back and top work them. The big picture is we now have legitimate research as to why we don’t grow these varities in Kansas and they are grown in other places. Maybe @mamuang the other place will be your place. My mom came out today and when looking over the damage today said as we have said many times better you know now. We don’t have an orchard of abate fetel thankfully. My orchard is resistant varities for the most part. This was an experiment i hoped i would get away with. This is a bad year for fireblight but I’m thankful we had it.
I know that these varieties are susceptible. They taste very good. People would grow them everywhere if they are easy to grow. I have one tree of AF. If it is killed by fire blight, it is just one tree.
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If you see it hit it do I what I did and chop it preserve the roots and graft it over. The mistake people make is grafting at the ground. This is why I graft nearly waste high. Use callery and BET rootstocks that are very resistant to fireblight. I like to use interstems in this case improved Kieffer as fireblight typically does not kill it. As discouraging as it might be and for others to see, the plan worked exactly as it was meant to. The fireblight did not go systemic. If it’s any comfort abate fetel did not bring the disease. Madame boutant and meanie are pears you do not want in your orchard they are highly susceptible. If your growing them in fireblight country remove them asap.
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Thanks Clark, excellent pictures of what I need to look out for. I believe I planted a potted Honeycrisp some years back that came with a gift of fireblight. I had to cut the central leader out and have not had any problems since. I am told fireblight is here in Alberta, and I sometimes worry about every darkened and curled leaf or unfertilized blossom that is drying up. Your pictures will be a great reference.
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Fireblight seems minor at first so many don’t take it seriously. There can be a late season strike here or there as shown here Late season Fireblight . To most people it might seem like much of the fruit could have been saved but with fireblight remove the infections asap it will get worse. That tree would have been killed within 2 weeks if it had not been grafted in the way it was to prevent that type of loss. You notice the fireblight landed on the tips of the branches you could tell at this stage how the infection occurred. Likely a bird landed on the branch in an infected orchard and then flew into my orchard and landed on a susceptible tree. Birds and insects land here from other places hundreds of times in a year but most of my trees are resistant and no infection occurs.
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I had a young honeycrisp that got some pretty bad fireblight in the leader, and went a lot of a summer before I noticed. At that point, it had girdled the central leader about 85%. I took a knife and removed the cambium with just a sliver of unaffected cambium connecting the top and bottom. I was skeptical, but as you can see below it started to recover and eventually fully recovered. So, it is possible!
@mamuang , I read your comments on blossom blast with interest. After digging a bit deeper, I think I have seen this due to three frost/freeze events while trees were blooming. I had browning of blooms with no associated ooze or black stems. Those hit hardest were pink lady and red delicious Thanks for mentioning this.
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… great sadness
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Knew the rules better than most about fireblight.
Got caught trying to get away with something. Don’t feel sadness about it that was overdue.
So sorry. I did something similar on a tiny scale compared to yours
Most of my cuts were preemptive. One limb definitely had fireblight and another had worrisome leaves The growth of this Hosui was out of control, so I took this opportunity to bring it down to scale.
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After more than two decades of orcharding, fireblight has finally hit, so the fireblight is no longer a theoretically challenge. A neighbor two miles away experienced fireblight for the first time in a long time last year, so I wasn’t surprised, I guess, and I sprayed with copper during dormant oil season.
Reviewing the comments on this thread and elsewhere, I have learned:
- Cutting out the problem
A. Do it immediately
B. Wait until fall
- Sanitizing pruners
A. Do it after every cut
B. Do it between trees
C. Don’t do it at all
D. Don’t bother unless you spend 20-30 seconds cleaning the pruners
E. Use alcohol, since it is better for the trees
F. Use bleach, since it is more effective than alcohol
- When to spray
A. Spraying is only effective as a preventative when done in the spring
B. Spraying after fire light is observed can help stop the spread
- Strep sprays
A. An agricultural strep spray is the most effective spray
B. Strep sprays are no longer effective for most now resistant fireblight strains
C. It requires a license to spray strep
D. Strep sprays are available from Amazon, so it must not require a license
E. Copper is the more effective, anyway
There are lots more seemingly contradictory bits of advice, but that’s enough for now. What’s a feller to do?
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I check daily and break the limbs out while small. Later on I clean up the breaks.
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The best thing to do for now is amputation of infected branch. Break off some 6 inches extra when you do when you can. Dispose of those branches that are infected. The problem is with fireblight its not the same strands. It sounds like contradictory advise but it’s not when 1 person says spray with antibiotics and the other says don’t. Some fireblight is resistant other is not.
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#1: I cut it out right away. I have a long season and I’ve seen it migrate a long way over the summer and get into the trunk.
#2: dunno
#3: once the bacteria is inside the wood, spraying strep does not do anything. The bacteria is protected inside. Spray only when the flowers are open and rain or heavy dew is expected.
#4: fertilome FB spray (strep) is an over the counter type of protect for gardeners. Strep has been VERY effective in my garden but I’m not in an apple producing area where I’d guess there are more resistant strains
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My experiences are very similar to @barry, which isn’t surprising since we have very similar climates and growing conditions. I’d add that pruning back into 2nd year or older wood tends to work better for me, that the “right away” part is critical, and that very susceptible varieties are losers no matter what I do. Hot dry weather is the best treatment.
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Any suggestions about this tree? I’ve taken about a third of the branches off it this summer. The fire blight keeps coming back.
Right now, the bottom two scaffold branches are not affected but a lot of the rest of the tree has had it. I was trying to leave the scaffolds branches because I’ve trained it fairly flat because it’s on the edge of my property. The tree looked ok last week but lots of black leaves when i got home today. Took these pictures before pruning.
I’m considering replacing the tree this fall after things go dormant. I have another pear that’s in it’s second summer that would do better in this location than where it is. That one isn’t showing any damage so far. Could be because it’s growing a lot slower…
What is the pear variety?
If my records are right, the one that’s got the fire blight is Northbrite. I also have an Emery and So Sweet that i planted at the same time (5 years ago). This is the first I’ve had fire blight. The other two also have had it but i pruned them harder at the start. It’s come back a bit on the Emery and I don’t see it at all on the So Sweet now. I think that if I had taken more off this tree when i first found it, then i might have gotten rid of all of it.
The one that i could replace it with (for free) would be a Moonglow that i planted in a sub-optimal spot in 2021.
I also have a Shinseiki that i planted in the spring of 21 fight beside this with no blight on it.
I try to cut 2 feet below visible symptoms, cutting into older wood and leaving a 4 to 7 inch “ugly stub” for removal only when dormant. In other words, I do not cut flush to next branch or trunk, but instead make a heading cut that leaves a stub that acts as a buffer to keep any reinfection of the cut away from the next branch or trunk.
Reinfection of the cut can come from airborne blight, blight on the bark surface and blight on pruners. If you’ve cut low enough and with a big enough stub, that reinfection won’t hurt the tree if removed in winter.
This is the Ugly Stub method devised by the late Prof. Steiner of U of Maryland and endorsed by Penn State and other luminaries.
It looks like this variety is just too susceptible for your location.
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