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nafex - [NAFEX] apple tree with fireblight

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  • From: Alan Haigh <alandhaigh@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] apple tree with fireblight
  • Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:44:20 -0500

The only way I cut down an apple tree because of fireblight is if I'm
convinced I can't save the tree. It's not about % but about how deep the
cankers go into the wood and how big the wood where FB is present. Never
had it happen to an apple, but I lost 2 pears for the first time ever last
season when it got into the cambium of the lower trunks.

I've cut down a couple quince because it is the ultimate FB sponge, but
they were in an almost constant state of shoot blight for several years.
The trees themselves were still quite vigorous.

Here FB can show up one year and then dissappear indefinitely. I manage
hundreds of pear and apple trees (as well as other fruit) on scores of sites
and have encountered no disease more mysterious than FB. All I've ever seen
is summer shoot blight and never anything in flowers in spring. This is
over the course of some 25 years in southeastern NY where FB is notorious
(of course, it's notorious in lots of places).

I've had sites where cankers were much too numerous to remove and had no FB
the following year there while other sites had it the first time just a few
miles away.

Anyway, I suggest you remove all cankers cutting several inches into clean
wood and give the thing another chance.




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