North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> There is no more risk to your trees for fire blight from summer 
> pruning than there is from pruning out fire blight in the summer.


But I pretty well HAVE to prune out the fireblight right away, don't I? 
If I don't want it to spread?

I figured that there was some risk it would spread, but more risk if I 
didn't get rid of the infected areas. So I've got some choice about 
other summer pruning, but not about that, I thought.


> And, once again, once the terminal buds have set, fire blight risk in 
> minimal if not completely gone.


I'm not sure I understand that, Dennis. What do you mean?

Well, this is the first year I've had fireblight, and I don't know much 
about it (my county extension office didn't know anything about it, 
either). But from what I've read, it will infect a tree through an 
injury, right? So if I'm pruning off a bunch of new growth, won't that 
just multiply my chances that it will spread to that tree (especially 
when I know that fireblight is in the area)?

I would like to summer prune my apples and pears (probably not this 
year, at this point, but in general), but I didn't want the fireblight 
to spread. Yes, I pruned off the infected branches, but I figured that I 
didn't have much choice in that. And the disease is supposed to be 
dormant in the winter, so I figured that dormant pruning would be OK 
(and I've got to prune SOMETIME).

I'd hate to get rid of the Suncrisp apple, especially since it's one of 
four planted in one spot (and they're tied together to keep them all 
upright). That's one of the problems with that method. (Heh, heh. I, for 
one, don't have a "cult-like enthusiasm" for it. It definitely has its 
advantages, but I'd do things differently if I had to do this all over 
again. Not the basic idea, maybe, but probably not four in one spot like 
this.)

And although I've got a nice strong sprout from the root, where I 
suppose I could graft a new variety (though I've never done any 
grafting), it's not a dwarfing rootstock. Instead, all four of these 
apple trees had a dwarfing interstem. OK, they've done really well, but 
it would make replacing the Suncrisp harder to do.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. I AM learning here, though slowly. :-)

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school 
like I did. - Yogi Berra