Ontario Fruit Explorers

["Biz Storms" <biz.storms@sympatico.ca>]

Hello Everyone,

I am hoping that the group can help me with a current mystery. I have been 
checking my orchard daily since fireblight was discovered this week at a 
neighbouring orchard - a few kilometers away. It was found in a few of their 
Tolman Sweets. 
Yesterday I discovered what looked like fireblight in four of our Highbush 
Cranberry. It has the shepherd's crook at the end of most of the affected 
branches, plus the dead leaves, etc. 
The fellow who manages many local orchards and who has been helping me out, 
says it certainly looks like the fireblight found on apple trees, and did a 
MAJOR prune. We will burn it today. 
My question, is whether anyone has seen it appear in the cranberry family. 
The information I have indicates apples, pears, hawthorns, and a few other 
families - like rosacea. 

On a more positive note, we're picking currants like crazy and the berry 
population is astoundingly high. The blackberries forming this year are 
awesome. We will have enough for a few batched of jam.

We requeened one of our hives, and will be extracting the first round of 
honey either this weekend or next. 

Everything else is thriving - especially the prickly thistles. Anyone else 
getting overrun by thistles? They seem to be this year's epidemic, like the 
Quenn Anne's Lace two years ago.

Thanks in advance for any info.
Cheers, Bizmark.
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network