Thanks Barry. What do I look for inside the twigs? Discoloration in cambium?
Yeah. Hopefully no discoloration. They look healthy to me.
Are those from a healthy tree or does it have big FB cankers elsewhere?
Healthy tree. I am now convinced it is NOT blight. Blight has made me paranoid!
Another blight question. We know that blight can only be active between 50 and 90 degrees F. So, on a nice 60 degree day in Feb like today (surrounded by under 50 degree days) do I risk spreading blight by pruning?
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I would think it is safest to assume you could potentially spread it at any time of year,
Bleach your tools between each cut. On infected wood .
And because it is mainly wind blown , itās important to remove the infections up high, probalbly best to burn infected wood,
Most important is fertility management , high nitrogen levels cause excess shoot growth prone to blight infection ,
If you are getting more than ~a foot of shoot growth and have a blight problem , do not apply nitrogen .
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This is a good time in my area to be looking for signs of FB damage. My pears have about finished blooming and soon after it has been my experience to see an occasional strike. My method of dealing with it but not necessarily the best has been to carefully look over the areas of recent blooms for damage. If caught early enough I can simply break off the offended area to clean wood. I think that it is best to check daily to be effective. The key is to catch it early. Strikes over other foliage if not promptly removed will in many cases infect lower areas. This has been my experience with FB which is less than perfect but I think it helps.
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@Auburn
Gread advice Bill i do the same! Break off the infected part with your hand early and low enough below the infection to where it does not spread!
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I have the exact same thing on my apple tree, but I think they had a growth spurt during a warm period, then it got frozen when it got cold again.
I had several varieties of pears bloom this spring. My two heaviest bloomers was Korean Giant and Harrow Sweet. Both of these two have also set a good crop and they are about nickel size and bagged. For a few days now I have seen a few small spurs that appear to be fireblight on the KG. I have been checking these daily and breaking them out. As of now I havenāt seen any nearby areas that appear infected. The Harrow Sweet grafted on the same tree appears to have escaped the dreaded infection. Fireblight could get worse but right now it isnāt a big problem. My apples are about finished blooming and I will be keeping an eye on them.
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Fireblight will claim 3 apples here so far prior to bloom which looks like it may be a tough year.
Did they die over the winter clark? Last year was my worst Fireblight experience i think due to quinces blooming and the japanese beetles spreading them. There was several branches i was not sure where infected but some seemed to get better over the winter on about half and the disease became obvious on the others.
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I have quite a few of those this year, too
@RichardRoundTree No they have not died they are harboring the disease so i will chop them down and burn them
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I love your gardening style and wanted to pick your brain real quick. Are you removing these because you just donāt want to grow varieties that are not suited to your area without intensive sprays? Or is there a certain point that the tree is gone for you?
Last year i had a nice avalanche of work / family emergencies and was gone for a good month and half over summer when a crazy Japanese beetle year hit and regularly i get too busy with work anyways late spring to fall.
I have two red fleshed apples and both had minor strikes during bloom (making me feel they are naturally weak) During this period they got by far the worst and enough i would normally pull the tree out but i want to try to just remove the scions (Completely because of the FB) and regraft to the rootstocks and i have some complicated ideas on how to do this. Anyways after removing the Russian Quinces which was very hard for me because they smell absolutely amazing but they are clearly not made for my environment and the first year they fruited and bloomed it was constant Quince Rust and Fireblight and watching it attack my apples was enough to bring out the saw.
I just couldnāt kill the red fleshed apples i got (Airlies Red Flesh and Wealthy) and chopped them down to 12" and 16" respectively. There does not seem to be any Fireblight but do you think its worth another shot with them, they seem to have areas they can make new buds from?
Also my Goldrush, Akane and Ashmeads kernel are the ones that i see some fireblight on a few limbs, when you get fireblight on the limbs is that when you feel a tree is too gone or do you feel after a good prune things would be able to recover? I do plan on spraying beneficial bacteria before / after the cuts.
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Usually i commit a certain amount of time and resources to something but there is a point where they stop being an asset and are a liability. I keep my orchard pretty clean of disease but i do see most all diseases at some point or another. If a tree does not die from fireblight but has it that will spread to other healthy trees. I remove a problem like that asap. I do have one additional suggestion because i to like to have those type of varities as well and do get away with it, graft them.on the tips of a highly resistent variety. Have grafted fireblight susceptible pears such as forelle, abate fetel, comice etc on the tips of kieffer, harrow delight etc. Fireblight resistant pears. If you do that the infection stops with your interstem. Another trick is i grow many pears on callery which is the highly fireblight resistant wild strain in most cases and graft higher up than normal so the roots are never killed and i merely graft over a tree that gets fireblight knowing the roots cannot be killed to the ground. Saves years of work! So far im not finding the magic bullet to address apple issues but in time i might find the answers.
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My apples have only been blooming about 2 weeks but the high temperatures and rain have created many days where conditions are perfect for a Fireblight infection.
I use the weather info from a local airport which feeds into computer models at Cornell to help decide when its time to spray streptomycin. The Maryblyt and Cougarlight models are both available but I have been told that the Maryblyt model is a better predictor for the east coast.
As soon as it stops raining its time for another strep application.
Here is the Newa model for my area:
http://newa.nrcc.cornell.edu/newaModel/apple_disease
Choose fireblight infection from the drop down menu to see the data.
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That is an awesome tool Blueberry thank you!
Yeah my worry with leaving the non resistant varieties I bought is that if i graft over and they churn out a bud i forget to clip or pick off is that they will then die back to the roots, so for the weak varieties i have left (I forgot to mention Karmijn de Solville) my main plan is to cut low and force a rootstock shoot and cut the main trunk out at soil level so i can start over grafting fresh and clean. Did i mention how much i hate the peeling geneva trunk wood? It actually looks cool and the underwood does seem like a strange hard wood and i like its lighter in color and maybe will reflect the sunlight better in winter? I do wish i could find a good rootstock for my area that is Fireblight proof and wont need support even when i make it do crazy stuff. Next time i go to replace an apple i am going to buy G 890 and try grafting to it since i wasnāt able to get it for my replacement apple this year.
I really love how you have made the callery pear work for you clark as i have seen they are all over Kansas. So in Colorado we have what Iāve been told is a callery pear (but i suspect it may be bradford after learning more). As they are ornamental and seem to be clones or atleast homogenous enough, They are not as bad as cottonwoods or Russian olives which salt our ground by using more water than salts and not shading enough for there water usage as well. However when they bloom it smells horribly (Did i mention how great linden trees smell?) and they need as much water as a fescue lawn. (Thus when people move and or irrigation stops they tend to die and be a huge pain in coming down). I was always told by my old boss that they were carriers of fireblight and why fireblight is so bad here, Now i have no idea if thatās true as my boss had a lot of unique things he felt like thieves donāt steal tools and other things and somehow my truck never got robbed while i worked there?
I am glad to see you mention this. Although I use different varieties my design is basically the same. I start off with a Callery root and then add an unknown dwarf interstem then an old standby for the structure such as Orient or Ayers. Other highly resistant varieties would do just as well I think. I donāt know what resistance my interstem is but my opinion is that it is low risk because the few fireblight strikes I get can be removed way before getting back there. This procedure is getting a test this year because I have Korean Giant grafted to Orient that is getting hit on a small scale. Iām a believer in early attention to removing fb strikes prevents it from migrating and causing more damage. You never know when fb will pop up but using Clarks design in my opinion is a smart way to minimize the damage.
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So I read through most of this. What a great thread. I had no idea fire blight was such an issue. I am new to the Fruit trees and own 3 pears and 4 apple all in there 2 year of growth. Well one pear is first. Thank you for all of the great pictures to show me. I thus far have not seen anything like those pics on my trees. I do have one quick question though. Should I just spray copper spray anyway every year. Just in case? And if so should I just time it with dormant spray?
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