It was off a four in one grafted tree from Stark. The limb was 20th century. I have never sent out grafts from this tree or this variety. I think it is known for its susceptibility to FB.
After cutting down the two trees that were just all over infected I’ve been pretty good. No rain since then and very hot weather so no further strikes in my pears or apples. This tree (orient) took a beating but hasn’t had any new strikes.
I’m continuing to see one here and there. Big trees are no problem. There are lots of branches. My dwarf shinko is another story. First time with fruit. Cut off about 8 pears yesterday and I’m close to the trunk. I did several dormant sprays but none near pink/white for my pears and apples. I won’t let that happen again.
I hope you have more Abbe Fetel on other tree, too. I can’t tell if mine is correct until the 3 fruit I have ripen. One of the wood I got was from you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
… great sadness