Treatment is the same, whatever the reason you are growing it.

Completely dead should be removed whenever it is seen. Dead is not aesthetically pleasing.

In general, pruning out infected branches is done during hot, dry weather. (summer)

Fire blight can infect any member of the family rosacea. That includes any member of the genus prunus: cherries, plums, pears and many others. Copper based fungicides are a traditional treatment as is pruning out infected branches, being especially careful to sterilize pruners between cuts. Check with your extension service for positive identification and advice about recommended treatment and timing for your specific area.

Do you have a pic? I would cut out any infected areas. How long have you had the tree? Does it give good yields of plums?

Fire blight is a bacterial infection that overwinters in cankers and cracks in the bark. There are other infections that can exhibit symptoms very similar to those produced by fire blight. That's why in person inspection is important. No photograph, however clear, can be used for 100% reliable diagnosis.

get rid of it ...

after too many years of experience.. i found.. it usually cheaper to get rid and buy a young resistant plant...

rather than spend money on chems... plus my labor.. my exposure .. etc ... and the fact that i usually lost the battle ...

many plums have varying issues .... i would steer away from them for ornamental purposes ..... unless you buy a fruit production plant ... and then follow the requisite spray regimen ... which again.. leads to increased costs.. exposure.. and wasting time ...

its the old cost/benefit ratio ....

ken

"some other canker"

Fireblight produces cankers as well. Most bacterial pathogens produce cankers.

"The people there are way more knowledgeable about fruit tree diseases."

I'm not at all sure why you make that assumption. Some of the responders on this forum are extremely knowledgeable about all manner of tree pathogens and fire blight tends to be one of the most prevalent diseases of fruit trees as the vast majority are members of the Rosaceae family, all of which are extremely prone to this disease (unless specifically bred to be resistant).

Logan, you might want to read up on this common disease and see if it matches the symptoms your plum exhibits. Generally the disease is most active and readily visible in spring and any treatment may need to be ongoing as conditions dictate.

UGA Extension fire blight fact sheet.

lol I love when you guys get into little cat fights!

Ken, this tree is somewhat sentimental, so I would prefer to not remove it. It absolutely isn't black knot, so we can rule that out. Gardengal, thanks for the link, it matches all of the symptoms listed there.

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This is the only photo I could find of the tree. I will go look for more.

Is that your black truck in the backround?

That is the neighbor's vehicle. The property line is directly on the other side of my giant red oak.

Here are some photos from my old thread that nobody really replied to. As you can see the profusion of blooms in the spring are beautiful (around the same time as callery pear). They are also very fragrant, not to mention the beautiful form.

==>>>http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3973478/japanese-methley-plum-problem?n=2

Is there a pool inside that fenced in area to the left? Looks like lawn chairs are in there.

Yes, LOL that is my pool. Probably going to plant canna lilies around the fence for better screening. I also have some needle palms, miscanthus, and a rose of sharon planted around it.

Do you have kids? Does anyone ever use the pool? Reason i ask is because i dont swim so i would steer clear of homes with pools. They are kind scary to me. lol

I don't have children, I really don't like dealing with children. I use the pool sometimes during the summer. It's very nice to have. After a long saturday of garden work, just jump in the pool and cool down. That's the reason I haven't torn down the fence, because I don't want non-swimmers and stray animals drowning (not that I mind the stray dogs drowning, I just don't want to fish them out).

Logan, once again, lay off the dogs please.

Can we please get back on topic? When should I hard prune? After I spray with fungicide or after flowering?

Really? You're the one who brought drowning dogs into the mix. I'm happy to bow out now, as I don't have any other advice.

No one on this forum or any other one is so knowledge that he or she can accurately diagnose a bacterial disease (or many other diseases) from a photograph. And yes, you we're completely incorrect in asserting that "plums don't get fire blight". This is a major disease of apples, pears, cherries and all other members of the genus prunus. That it has never been mentioned on the fruit tree forums you cite for their superiority does not inspire confidence.

Perhaps we can agree that dogs don't drown, cats do...

As a professional consulting horticulturist, one of the things I do is diagnose plant diseases. I will agree with akamaine that an accurate ID from just an online photo is difficult but not impossible :-) Some diseases just produce very characteristic symptoms - fire blight is one - that makes photo identification relatively simple and pretty darn accurate. Since Logan has not provided us with a photo that shows the disease issues he is concerned about, fire blight is just as likely as anything else and based on his review of the linked fact sheet, he seems to confirm that is indeed the problem. But I agree that a proper diagnosis is required before he starts any treatment and his local extension service would be able to provide that.

Just an FYI, but fire blight is a very common problem on many stone fruit in areas that are prone to that disease (which would include NC). As has been mentioned previously, it can and does infect most members of the Rosaceae, which includes most common stone fruits as well as quince (both flowering and fruiting), pyracantha, hawthorns, raspberries, sorbus and roses themselves. Much more likely to appear on Malus and Pyrus species but also very prevalent on Prunus. If you visit the Fruit and Orchards forum here on GW, the discussion and posts about fire blight affecting all manner of fruit trees are plentiful and very common in spring when the pathogen tends to rear its ugly head.

I give up. Gardengal I suggest you do a little more research. if you are an actual professional then perhaps you can reach out to someone with more experience with stone fruit. Do you have any contacts at Cornell, if so you might ask them. Try not to focus your research on university pages that just paste and copy what others say but actually do the research themselves. Hopefully when you discover you are wrong you will admit it and stop spreading statements that are adamantly inaccurate.

And the cat fight continues....... lol

Oh please, enlighten me on what I said that was "adamantly inaccurate"!! I didn't say the tree had fire blight - I can't see it and so can't confirm for sure - but I said it was possible. And it is. You were the one that said that plums "can't get fire blight" (although now I see you have deleted that comment......wonder why??) when several others as well as numerous sources indicate that they indeed CAN.

And I also wonder why you think I have no experience with stone fruit? You have no idea what my background is or what sort of experience I might possess. btw, university extension publications tend to be some of the most knowledgeable sources for local plant pathogens - THEY are the ones that generally conduct the research!!

Gardengal, see the link that I posted above for photos that I took this summer. It includes recently dead branching, the overall tree, living branches, and photos of last spring's flowers. Now you guys see why the fruit forum didn't bring me anything that I didn't already know.........

See this link about fireblight which, for the skeptics, includes an extensive list of hosts:

http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=C871

I agree with gardengal that we haven't seen images to "tell" us this is fireblight. I posted on the post from earlier in the season. Dieback, yes; but not convincingly fireblight.

I suggest that the symptomatic tissue be seen during the coming growing season by a knowledgeable local person who can look for bacterial ooze and more. One such source is the university's Extension Service office; find your nearest office with this interactive map: http://npic.orst.edu/pest/countyext.htm

As for the question when to prune: Fireblight is best pruned out during hot, dry weather.

Further, any applied spray against fireblight should be a bactericide, not a fungicide.

Bacterial ooze? Do you mean gummosis? Because it does have that problem. I will spray with fungicide and bacteriacide sometime in the coming weeks, and before I hard prune this summer. Thanks for the help.

I tried something unconventional which seems to have worked. My young pear tree had the symptoms of fire blight. Knowing that bacterial diseases are hard to fight, and not wanting to invest in chemicals for this tree, I pruned away the worst parts and sprayed the entire tree with a 10% bleach solution. Didn't seem to hurt anything and a year or so later the tree looks healthy.

I'm really afraid to use bleach. It might finish it off LOL.