North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com>]

A few years ago, Fruit Varieties Journal had an article documenting
cicada gashes in pear limbs as an entry point for fireblight
infections.  Some pears resistant to blight entering through blooms
are much less resistant to the blight-causing bacteria entering
through bark injury.  'Seckel' is one example; we lost ours after a
severe August hailstorm.

Not that I'm recommending spraying for cicadas, just pointing out that
under the right conditions, they can cause problems.  They took out a
number of limbs on our favorite filbert tree, during our last big
hatch.

Richard Moyer
SW VA