I started dormant spraying last year, and was pleased with the lack of fireblight and pests. Is seems to be helping quite a bit. As far as cutting the trees back; as long as youÂre sure itÂs fireblight and not frost damage, the faster you remove it the better. 6 to 8 inches is fine, and the bleach in between cuttings helps reduce the chance of you spreading it.

From what I have read, rain and warm temps have a lot to do with its severity from year to year.

SEE link below.

The petals will turn brown as they die, and it will be uneven. The typical sign for fireblight is the sheppards crook (curling up of the end of your branches). I'd make sure you have a real problem before butchering your trees. Also don't worry about bleaching your pruners, it isn't necessary according to the fire-blight expert researcher from PSU who tries very hard to intentionally spread it in the lab. Although I still dip mine in rubbing alcohol between trees.

Look closely at your trees, if you have fireblight, its originating from a canker somewhere, find the canker which will be oozing a sticky fluid, and you will confirm that you have a problem.

Obviously if you have it, you must cut it out or the tree will die. You need to cut at least 8 inches below the infected parts to ensure you get it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fireblight

Fireblight usually reveals itself later in the year. So consider other possibilities.

Can you post pictures?

Jean, not around here, fireblight starts at bloom and can last for several months.

The little things you mention are very minor; look around for black marks on shoots/trunks or whole shoot tips that are blackened, they are the more severe strikes. Also get all the minor things out IMMEDIATELY, they will produce more bacterium if you are not fast.

So far this year I lost about 10 leaves and one blossom in my 200 trees so I am feeling pretty good. But the warmer weather in a few weeks will make the blight much more active so the worst is yet to come.

Scott

I'll post pictures shortly.

The pear trees had no signs of fire blight last year. So I'm thinking it had to be spread to those trees by bees. The apple trees were from starkbros and were in 7 gallon pots, so they could have had it last year.

I'm in a tract neighborhood so there could easily be another fruit tree nearby with fire blight and I just don't know about it. Since it's the flowers that got hit on the apple trees, I'm thinking that came from the bees also.

brian

Here's picture links:

http://i43.tinypic.com/125m2jt.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2zssbbq.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/2bs03d.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/kcz62c.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/24vtmqh.jpg

I pulled off three our four blackened leaves yesterday so I don't have good pictures of those. And the one I have here is sort of blurry. Lots of flower pictures though.

brian

added pics above

Those flowers are not blighted, they are just dropping petals. That leaf damage could in theory be blight but it could also be a detached or malformed leaf. So I'm not sure you have any fireblight at all, and if you do its very minor.

Scott

The leaves I pulled off the other day looked worse than this one, shriveled up and black. If it is fire blight, I'd want to fix it now before it takes out an entire branch. I can wait and see though.

Why would they be dropping petals? Because they've been pollinated or because of some other problem?

brian

Brian, all petals drop eventually; some drop before others.

The single leaf damage form is the least dangerous form so even if it is fireblight all I would do is clip off the shoot tip its on and be more vigilant for bigger strikes. When the warmer weather comes the blight will multiply much much faster and that is the point you need to really be watching and getting the strikes pruned out ASAP. Also make sure to vigilantly prune out all rootstock suckers, because if they get blight you can lose the whole tree and not just a couple limbs.

Scott

Thanks for the info. If the flowers are ok, then it looks like the blight is limited to only maybe 4 or 5 leaves on two pear trees. I'll keep watching them. If it spreads, I can take off those branches easily without taking too much of the tree away. The pears are my biggest trees. Thanks for the help.

brian