Happy to report no firelight at all so far this year on the 50+/- apple varieties I am growing. We had lower than normal rainfall during the peak bloom period which probably really helped.
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I had less FB on my apples and pears except for Korean Giant. All levels of FB this year have been kept low with early removal.
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Very little fireblight here this year. I did some things differently in 2019, adding two streptomycin sprays in addition to two copper sprays, removing late blooms which coincide with peak infection weather, and removal of all material that might possibly be fireblight infected on a daily basis. We also had a freak period of hot, dry weather, with 5 days in a row from May 24th to May 29th with no rain and at least 90 degrees, which seemed to help a lot.
I know thereās been a discussion on the merits of pruning vs breaking limbs off. Iām still pruning because my reasoning is I want to get all possible sources of infection out of the orchard. Iāve noticed that the bark on infected shoots tends to look different far below where the leaf symptoms are. There arenāt cankers, thereās no cracking, not even much discoloration on the bark, but it looks a bit wrinkly. I canāt get a good picture nor can I find a good image on the internet. Iām cutting several inches below that bark, which results in me removing a lot of wood that appears healthy at first glance. However, Iām getting almost no reinfection on those shoots/branches. If I leave any of that impacted bark thereās always reinfection.
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Glad to hear folks in the SE are coming through ok. No strikes for me this year. I thought my grimes had fb in the trunk but appears fine now.
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Iām slowly chopping off pieces of my Bartlett pear from FB. It has been a horrible spring with constant rain. Now my Bartlett pear is getting FB from branch to branch. I may have to take the whole tree out.
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These shoots are on a MonArk apple that was planted a year ago.
I have been looking at pictures online but I canāt decide if it look like fireblight, or something else, so I am hoping someonewith more experience will give me their opinion.
After losing a Bartlett pear last year, every dying leaf on new growth screams āFire blight!ā at me.
Thank you!
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Sure looks like fireblight to me, the tree looks like it has a good bit of young tender growth which is the growth most susceptible to Fireblight. I would go ahead in cut it out when there is no rain in the forecast for a few days.
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It could be FB but even if it is not I would cut off and dispose of the damaged area.
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Take a look at the late Prof. Steinerās Ugly Stub Method of Blight Pruning that starts at top of page 5 of this document:http://extension.cropsciences.illinois.edu/fruitveg/pdfs/philosophy_fire_blight.pdf
Keys are cutting back into at least 2 year old wood and leaving a 4 to 6 inch stub (vs pruning flush to next branch).
Finally - thanks to the late Prof. Steiner- I feel like I know how to avoid spreading blight throughout my orchard by my pruning cuts. I probably killed many trees before reading Prof. Steinerās method, thanks to other posters here.
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Thanks, everyone! I was hoping we were going to make it through this season without fire blight.
Time to get out the clippers and disinfectant.
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I think this is an excellent tactic. There seems to be something related to the older wood keeping the spread of FB down. I havenāt always cut/broke back this amount but I plan to when practical. Thanks
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This is my results on pear fireblight for 2019 as best I can remember. I was surprised at how many strikes I had on my Korean Giant. It had a heavy bloom and set a huge load. Almost daily I would go through breaking out small infected limbs and I think this must have helped. Eventually the strikes stopped and I ended up with plenty of KG fruit. The kids really liked this pear and it was well worth the extra effort. Harrow Sweet which bloomed partly while KG was blooming had almost no strikes and set a good crop. Ayers and Golden Boy had a mid amount of strikes. Kieffer had very few strikes but my overall best this year went to Orient. Orient blooms early and get froze out many years but I havenāt seen a single fb strike on it. All this is from my memory and just an estimate. My pears and muscadines are my favorite fruit to grow. Hazel nuts are also moving up my favorite list even though I havenāt got to taste them yet.
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Thank you for the article. Interesting information.
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Hidden Blight Canker: One More Reason to Raise Height of Lowest Scaffold Limb:
Fire Blight Lesson #99: Keep my apple scaffold limbs at least 30 inches off the ground. Blight can hide on the underside of a low scaffold where you can spot it only by laying on your back and sliding under the tree. Blight hid out right there and then spread on two beautiful limbertwig trees that are now probably toast. Iāll saw the trunk at six inches and see if the cambium color tells me anything.
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First fireblight of the year pruned out yesterday. Five strikes on two different trees, four blossom and one shoot. So far some previous fireblight sweepstakes losers like goldrush and pink lady are fine. Last year was a meduim-bad year, with trees that are supposedly resistant getting hit (Liberty, Enterprise) but no tree except the liberty losing a scaffold.
One copper dormant spray this year and so far three agri-mycin. I do not feel good about this spray program but have found no good alternatives. I already prune to very open trees, pinch off late blossoms, have no overhead irrigation, and generally select resistant varieties, with pink lady being the exception. Suggestions welcome.
Probably because of our very early warm weather, this yearsā bloom is really extended here for some trees, which is always a blossom blight problem.
A couple of yesterdayās prunings, blossom blight on the left and shoot blight on the right. Guest appearance by ARS pruners, an excellent purchase, and one of the many valuable things Iāve learned about because of this forum. Since Iām not going in to work because of the coronavirus, I should be able to scout daily and remove infections very early.
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Looks like the clippings in the picture are wet.
I learned the hard way that fireblight should only be cut out when the trees are perfectly dry
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Do you spray within 24 hrs ahead of rain or heavy dew? Its my understanding that its important to do that. Of course thats impossible if it rains every day. I wonder if old hard-to-see cankers from last year could be leading to some shoot bligjt originating from within your trees? It took me two season of strep to get the infections way down. Last year i only saw two small apples oozing and that was it. None so far this year and but that could change rapidly and FB is known for unpredictability. Ive got good fruit set and picking off flowers when its dry.
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Yes, one is wet because I had just started the streptomycin spray when I noticed it. I immediately stopped spraying, scouted all my trees, cut the blight out, and then finished spraying. Normally I do not cut when things are wet.
I should have but I missed the spray before the heavy rains on Saturday and light rains on Sunday. It was one of those things where I had just sprayed on Tuesday and thought that the spray on Friday would be too soon. I should have gone ahead.
Fireblight has been a big problem for us even using the Maryblyt model with data fed from the local airport. We had several instances last year where the model predicted an infection but we could not spray for several days because of the rain. Even after spraying the max rate 5 times I still had a problem. Apogee really helps with the shoot blight phase but Itās hard on young trees.
Also had a major outbreak a few years ago where the more blight I cut out, the more the blight problem accelerated. Things got worse and worse until the apple PHD told me to just stop cutting it out. New instances of fireblight declined after that point and I cut the rest of it out when we hit a dry spell in July.
I see you are in zone 7B too. Bet your climate is warm and wet during the bloom period just like mine.
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what varieties in the photo had the blight?