Answering this very late… but this was a bad fireblight year for me in western Oregon. June rain and 105 degrees! Lost nearly all the cider apples. I THINK I lost a couple cherries to FB also, but not sure. Whole trees turned black.
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Cherries don’t get fireblight. It was probably bacterial canker.
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I have never seen it that bad, though, and asked Home Orchard Educational Society and was told this year, maybe it was FB because it showed up in so many odd places. I don’t know.
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My apples are getting hit really hard by fireblight this year. Ive probably picked off 100+ infected spurs/twigs across 3 semi dwarf trees. Just trying to keep it out of the scaffolds. So far so good but I’m concerned that it’s going to continue to get worse over the next few weeks. The crazy part is that we have only had a couple of rain events during apple bloom this year. I can see the callery pears around the neighborhood also starting to turn black. Any body else in the SE getting hammered yet?
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Just the usual issues. Temps have been ideal for blight. I’ve also been treating the problem tree and younger trees with a fairly new organic product. The Stayman, Winesap, Ark Black, Summer Banana, Williams Pride, Swiss Limbertwig, Victoria Limbertwig are all fine for now. I expect the WP to give me trouble again. The Golden D is always a pain in the ass, but 2024 will likely be the high water mark year. Plucked about 10 spurs on the evening walkabout. I had to remove about half the tree in 2024. The ornamental pears are not seeing blight in downtown Elkin.
2024 was the absolute worst year, and hardly a drop of rain fell the entire bloom period. It was dry, windy, warm just like this year.
Most of the blight I’m seeing is located in blossoms that blooming 4/1-4 when it was very warm. The earliest sets are fine and have fruitlets up to .5 of an inch. I’m inclined to get rid of any tree that isn’t reasonably resistant to blight.
The problem with the Williams Pride is the loooonnngggg bloom cycle. The Golden D also blooms for almost 4 weeks. Long run bloomers like these and the Williams Favorite invite trouble.
Which varieties are you growing?
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just listened to this podcast on fireblight:
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This is the time of the year I usually see a few strikes of fireblight (bloom to 3 weeks later). My pears have finished blooming and as of now I have only seen 1 strike on a Harrow Sweet and 1 on a Korean Giant. This time of the year I walk through in the morning looking. If I see any sign of fireblight I break it off as I walk through. My opinion is that I catch it early enough before it spreads. After 3 years of this method it appears to work well for Korean Giant and Dripping Honey pears.
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We have plenty of heat now… several days in the 80s… lows in the 50s 60s.
But we have had a very dry spring so far.
One 30 minute rain so far in April.
A dry spell at the end of March.
Too dry for morel mushrooms … or fire blight so far.
3 apples 3 pears.. 0 sign of fire blight so far.
Last year we had a very wet April and I had FB as usual.
TNHunter
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My experience is similar to @TNHunter 's and pretty different from @KPS. When it’s hot and not wet or very humid I don’t seem to get fireblight. So this year has been good.
I had one tree get what is maybe fireblight after the last rainstorm 11 days ago. I pulled off one branch but there were a few more with bad looking tips. I didn’t have time to take the top off or prune the bad looking bits. The tree is still there, it doesn’t look like the maybe fireblight progressed. I’m wondering if it was actually blossom blight. We went from freezing to 80 pretty quickly and I find it hard to tell the difference between fireblight and blossom blight at the start.
Last year was terrible because it would just barely rain every other day in spring and was followed up by a humid spring and summer.
@barry I feel like there are years when an area gets hit hard probably because a new strain shows up. There were trees where I had zero issues and then last year it was like you said: tons of dead pears on the roadside, trees that had no problems completely covered. I also learned it doesn’t have to rain - high humidity is enough to cause a “wetting event”.
Mostly the roadside callery and landscape pears seem immune around me, but there are random patches where a whole group will get it. I guess it’s survival of the fittest.
The latest heatwave has allowed it to explode. Code Red.
@KPS I lost williams pride in my 2017 mega outbreak. This year everything is getting hit hard, but so far I’m just breaking off twigs and cutting off a couple of larger laterals. For varieties that are blooming I’ve got goldrush, terry winter, Sundowner, Myers royal limbertwig, chickasaw, Hawaii, dixie red delight, kinnairds choice, kittageskee, and st clair. All are getting hit about the same. Ive picked off all remaining flowers. Im hoping to preserve enough fruits to at least have a below average crop. It’s supposed to stay dry all this week. Gotta weather the storm.
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That’s an awesome lineup.
Were you growing a St. Clair in 2017 when your Williams Pride died? I’ve entertained the notion of growing one, but I’m not sure if the SC is more blight resistant than the WP.
I have a couple new Hawaii scions grafted on my Golden D. Trial by fire. They’re demonstrating exceptional vigor. I suppose if they don’t eat it, they’re keepers. The Honeycrisp on the same tree is drooping.
Definitely FB.
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Bummer, will cut that branch off first thing in the morning, I don’t think it was on any other branches. Sad the spray didn’t prevent it.
Actually a few more spots. I think these two trees were the later bloomers that bloomed around the one downpour we got in the last few months.
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And all removed - pretty much removed any areas that had a streak on the middle of the leaf. I’m guessing I caught it relatively early, pretty much no leaves were fully dead, from all the pics i’ve seen by others it’s usually much further progressed.
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I grafted 2 Hawaii branches onto an existing tree in 2024. They are both extremely vigorous. Im worried st clair is going to ripen too early. My early ripeners usually don’t have good flavor and they turn soft too quickly in this heat. I need oct-nov apples. In my experience they all get blight bad at times but late bloomers seem worse. Goldrush Sundowner and terry winter bloom together, the others are a little behind except Myers LT is second latest and kittageskee is by far the latest but I’ve only had it a couple of years.
Glad you caught it when you did. I’d cut that way back to 2 or old wood if you can. Some folks leave a 6"stub then cut that off in winter.
Yeah it’s all cut back 12” or more, one whole branch removed in one case