Cure for Fire Blight?

[My Foot Smells]

Ugggg....... fire blight on my apple tree. Had a bad case on moonglow pear tree 2 years ago and ripped it out of the ground and burned.

Apple tree is about 5 years old and has some apples. But losing several limbs a week. I cut it back and dispose, but keeps coming back.

Has anybody else had to deal with this disease or treating with success? tia

[creister]

I've never dealt with it, but if you go to www.dirtdoctor.com, they give some solutions you may want to try. Look in the library section under fireblight. Good luck.

[My Foot Smells]

thanks. nice online library source.

[berryman]

Foot, I have it real bad in my area. I've got about 400 apple and pear and I have had to limit the varieties to resistant types and cull the rest. What kind of apple is it?

[My Foot Smells]

Cinnamon apple. County park grew 400 pear trees all destroyed by deer and blight. Hail storms wrecks thin skin and then whoops, there it is and boy does it suck.

[clkeiper]

Got to just cull the tree. Do not reuse the tools on any other tree until you have sanitized them. You have to spray for it before it is apparent. Streptomycin is the spray for it by the way.

[AlittleSalt]

Fire Blight - I never heard of it until now. The pictures I looked up look awful.

[berryman]

What CL said; sanitize your tools after taking the tree out and then choose a fireblight resistant variety to replace. Some spray but I choose not to use antibiotics like that.

Terrible when you plant a tree and then it dies like that...you have invested and want it to grow.

[My Foot Smells]

Salt, it is aweful and thanks berry & clk; unfortunate, but probably best to cull. Was hoping for different, but think fire blight is systemic and tough to eradicate.

Looking for a dwarf apple tree with for both ornamental and produce appeal. Of course, will look for fire blight resistant. I never thought about that, like Salt, never heard of her until my pear tree went down in flames.

Getting this guy up may be a chore, it is in a hand planted isolated area. Can't back the truck up and tie up with logging chain & not interesting in having a "stump" in the main garden area. I guess, where there is a will - there is a way.

Thanks for the grim replies, it has helped validate. Have a good day!

[My Foot Smells]

Google is not producing variety.

Are there any recommendations from the forum:

Dwarf Apple Tree

Fire Blight Resistance

Zone 7b

Ornamental

Tasty off the tree

Easy grower

Self pollinating (only want one tree)

Any other

[clkeiper]

Sorry. It is just the only answer. It won't "go away" no matter how much you prune. It also is influenced by fertilizer and pruning time, too. Once there is an open wound and there is a greater chance of the tree being more susceptible. We don't spray for it either, but there is one available, but we try to just plant disease resistant trees. There is a whole array of them now. Way more than there used to be. What kind of apple was it and how old was it? Some are more resistant than others.. My favorite so far is the Goldrush apple. It isn't ripe until mid Oct. I also like Freedom which is a nice red apple and is ready in Sept.

You need a pollinator tree. I don't know of any that are really self fertile.

[My Foot Smells]

It was a 5 year cinnamon apple tree grown from a 3 gallon pot. Think it was a dwarf variety and was supposed to top out at about 20 ft, but would really like a tree that tops out at 15 ft with a 12-15ft wingspan.

To my understanding (not a orchard expert), you need two different varities to create pllination that bloom at about the same time? I have a self-pollinating peach tree that puts off a ton (but 2ft wood pecker got me this year), other than that - this apple tree is the only other fruit on the property.

I do have plenty of room to plant whatever, so if need be can plant 2-200 to help bring on the fruit. Something drought tolerant is always ideal cuz we get the heat.

I thought there were "self-pollinating" apple trees though.

There is a nursery going out of business in town that has some big trees left (all the jap-map and mrytles are gone), that are like 60% off. Maybe I will cruise by there. Seems like I have much better "luck" when I toss a bigger tree in the hole from the beginning instead of nurturing a small sap.

I planted a black locust tree where the pear was, and that could be a colossal mistake - heard those can get a little unruly. But they are nitrogen fixers and very hardy.

On a side note, the elm stump on the fence (previous post) is waving the white flag. The drilled hole w/ uncut brush killer seems to be working.

Thanks for listening to all my "problems," LOL

[Lee]

So, once a tree gets fire blight, it's done for? Meaning no recovery
next year?
Mine are about 6 years old now, and I was starting to hope for some actual fruit......

Lee

[berryman]

Foot, a good source for trees is cumminsnursery.com
The site features good descriptions of some heirlooms and the different kinds of disease resistance for each.

[berryman]

Lee, you can manage the blight sometimes but it is unpredictable. Sometimes you can prune out a branch here and there (and burn it) and the tree will get by but other times the darn thing will just be overcome and die.
The hail in the spring is the worst because it breaks the bark and makes great new infection sites for the bacterium.