North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[fuwa fuwa usagi <fuwafuwausagi@muchomail.com>]

It was posted:

Thought this might be of interest to others who live, as we do, in real fire 
blight areas:

* A new pear cultivar was developed by USDA-ARS Appalachian Fruit Research 
Station in Kearneysville, W.Va. good flavor and
resistance to fire blight, a major disease problem for pears in the East
and Midwest. Virus-free certified budwood is available free to nurseries, 
said ARS horticulturist Richard Bell. http://afrsweb.usda.gov/DBell.htm

My reply:

Just one caution, and this may "excite" a few people.  Before I planted a 
whole lot of blight resistant pears I would trial them in my area.  I am 
convinced that there are localized strains of fireblight.   You might remeber 
last year i posted photos of a pear tree, with what I suspected was fire 
blight.   No less than Ed Fackler himself confirmed that it was fireblight.   
Well folks that was on Magness and now it is dead.   In fact since 1995 I 
have lost 4 different Magness fruit trees on various OHxF stocks to 
fireblight.  And the wood was from different sources, one source was 
Corvallis.   

On the other hand Harrow Sweet and Harrow Delight show a bit on some leaves 
and branches now and then but it stays isolated.   Harvest Queen has yet to 
get it, and nor has Potomac.   For that matter neither has my Barltlett, or 
Bosc, supposedly sensitive trees.

I am just relating my experience, with limited numbers of test subjects 
(singulars for all but Magness).   But it is something to ponder.

TFB 


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