I had some strikes that looked like FB but I’m sure it was freeze damage. Occured during really cold spell after freezing temps.
I have removed scions and regrafted them with success. You want to make sure they are clear though. Don’t spread it to others trees. My Bartlett has been a total frustration. Produced well in a warmer climate but nothing here for years. It was those 22 degree nights I think. Lots of buds but they were closed and I thought they could take it.
Ill be grafting it over with other varieties or taking it out. What a shame. I had high hopes for it. It’s about 10 feet tall after blooming.
Resembles FB because when pear leaves/ branch dies and dries out, it just turns crispy and black. I cut off a big pear root sucker and threw it on the ground. A week later, it turned crispy and black.
I ended up actually grafting both the trunk and the branch, but it looks like only the scions on the branch are taking where as the ones on the trunk look like they might have failed.
First time in 8 or 10 years I’ve had substantial blight here. I’ve cut blight out of all my apples except Sundance and Sweet Sixteen, the one with quite a reputation for getting blight, some places. Update: Sweet 16 also blighted but not too bad.
Have never sprayed copper, maybe next year. Belle de Boskoop has been my worst for blight this year. Goldrush, Monark, Keepsake, Kittageskee just a bit. So unpredictable.
It’s getting more humid and warmer in lower mid atlantic this past week. We are at ripe conditions now. Some rain may come to some this weekend and make things worse.
“Fire blight causes the most damage when spring or summer weather is warm, humid or rainy. Temperatures between 75 and 82 F and humidity above 60 percent allow the bacteria to reproduce and spread.”
Apples not suffering much at all this year for the first time ever. Three streptomycin sprays, removing all late blooms, pruned to open center, some other organic sprays that may or may not do any good. In contrast, my previously resistant pears including Ayers, Harrow Sweet, and Golden Boy with significant hits, as they weren’t sprayed because of a late freeze virtually eliminating the crop.
No copper used this year, because it really seemed to have little effect in previous years and I’m not convinced its better overall for the environment than streptomycin. I might be convinced, but that may be an issue better addressed in a separate topic.
This year’s blight shows me where I didn’t prune things open enough- branches shading branches, congestion, etc. Got complacent from blight no-show recent years.
Question about blossom blight. Some have advocated not cutting out fireblight strikes esp if they are self limiting. If there is a blossom blight on a fruitlet and I leave it, is it damaged permanently? Conversely, if I remove it, am I removing the fruiting bud permanently? Can’t decide whether they all have to go or not. Some are out of reach. All have been self limiting and did not go further into the branch, at least not so far.
I really did some intense spraying as I was out of town for a week. Pleased to say that everything looked fine on my return. No aphids even, except for the non fruit bearing plum that I skipped over. @mamuang recommendation to spray separately with a sticker, then add surround afterwards has yielded better results than combining them. Thanks!
The weather has been unusually cool, especially at night, and I imagine that has helped.
Also I’m leaving fruit with a pc strike if it’s the only fruit on that branch or fruitlet. I figure I have no problem eating it or cooking with it.
Added note: I think I’m confusing fireblight the bacteria with blossom blight the fungus. Can anyone help set me straight?
Blossom Blight on Peaches is a fungus and causes brown rot
Blossom Blight on Apples is a caused by the fireblight bacteria
My trees are older and we no longer aggressively cut out the fireblight strikes as soon as they occur. This is contrary to every recommendation we have seen but we experience a lot more blight every time we cut and remove the blight quickly.
Also noticed that just about every branch that breaks from too many apples gets a FB infection too, so it looks like each pruning cut provides an easy entry point for the FB bacteria the same way a broken branch does.
We try to locate and remove all the strikes in the fall after the FB season is over. This process works for our location but it’s not a recommendation.
Late season strikes I can leave, because the heat will limit them. Early season strikes I remove asap. If I catch those strikes early enough, as in the day the shoot tip first shows a color change to orange/brown, that shoot usually doesn’t get reinfected. If it’s a few days later I have to prune back significantly further than the standard recommendation or I’ll get reinfection. I don’t think my approach is practical for someone with a lot of trees as it requires daily intense monitoring.
I tried leaving early strikes a couple of years ago and it wasn’t pretty. Several main scaffolds and one trunk got infected, and there were many additional strikes that came as rain/wind spread the oozing liquid from the initial strikes. My long, wet, warm springs are great for growing many things, including fireblight bacteria.
Same here. It was real bad on my pears this year. I cut off several scaffolds off my Franken pear and cut the top out of my Ayers. Apples had quite a few strikes but I was able to stay on top of it. No new strikes lately. I think I’ve weathered the storm. Should slow down more once it heats up and this rain clears out. I think most of the apparent reinfections are just that the FB has automatically moved farther down the branch than the cut. I rarely see reinfections when I cut it so far back that it seems excessive. But if I cheat to try to save some wood or fruit that I want, that usually doesn’t go so well.
