North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[tanis grif <tanisgrif@yahoo.com>]

Good bet.  The last frosty & cold rainy spring here (s.WI) caused a little 
outbreak
of possibly this "blossom blight" in my plantings, mostly in the oldest pear 
tree.
Had to remove a lot of diseased wood just before regular summer-pruning 
season. 
Nothing else has ever bothered this pear tree, so I'm not really complaining. 
Especially since the disease didn't hurt anything else-- a few tiny 'flags' of
blackened leaves on a couple apple trees.

It wasn't worth taking a sample for testing, but I did some research and 
tentatively
identified it as "blossom blast", a Pseudomonas.  If I do the reading again, 
I might
see mention of persistant dead flowers, but that wasn't then a symptom I was
skimming for.

Interesting-- when I dissected the dying cambium of the pear branches, it had 
a very
sweet odor, not usual for the tree's wood.


--- David Doud <> wrote:

> there was a question a couple weeks ago about blossoms hanging on the tree 
> into
> the winter season - 
> 
> I opined that it was a characteristic of certain varieties to do that,  and 
> there
> was nothing to worry about - 
> 
> and I stand by that opinion - pretty much - 
> 
> but,  I was pruning thru some Gala on friday and came to a tree that had 
> 'blossom
> blight' (fireblight of the blossom cluster, infected during bloom) - those
> blossoms/small spur leaves were hanging on tight - 
> 
> now, Gala is one of those varieties that do hang onto mummies and aborted
> blossoms,  but  I could tell the difference in that the fireblighted spurs
> exhibited more of the 'shepards crook' form,  both the blossoms and spur 
> leaves -
> usually the bud was also dead,  tho many had a live bud on the bourse - 
> 
> so - I still wouldn't worry much about taking propagation wood off such 
> trees,  if
> there was no ready alternative, as propagation wood is of a different 
> nature than
> the spur blighted wood - - 
> 
> just thought I'd share - 
> regards - D  
> 
> 
> 



 
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