I am going to pass along the treatment for fire blight from Howard Garretts
most recent book"Howard Garretts's Texas Tress" ISBN 0-89123-076-9 pg. 234
"This is a bacterial disease of plants in the rose family in which blossoms,
new shoots, twigs, and limbs die back as though they have been burned.
Leaves usually remain attached but often turn black or dark brown. Prune
back into the healthy tissue and disinfect the pruning tools with a 3-5%
solution of hydrogen peroxide. Spray the plants at the first sign of
disease with Garrett Juice plus garlic and neem. Consan 20 and agricultural
streptomycin are also effective controls. Kocide 101 is a copper-based
fungicide often recommended. The best recommendation is to spray Garrett
Juice plus garlic, treat the soil with horticultural cornmeal, apply the
sick tree treatment, and reduce the nitrogen fertilizer. High nitrogen,
synthetic fertilizers are the primary cause of this disease."
It's easy to get the formulas for Garrett Juice and the sick tree treatment
from his website
www.dirtcoctor.com
free. I'm in no way affiliated with Howard, (other than being a student)
just passing along the information.
Tom
"Bill Bolle" wrote in message
...
In my experience, once you get fire-blight you have it forever. It's a
virus and will hit almost all members of the rose family, which apples
and pears are members of. Your only hope is getting blight resistant
varieties of these trees and I think that they are only resistant and
not immune. Treatment of infected trees is with antibiotics and out of
the skill of the home orchardist. If someone has better and more
hopeful information I sure would like to hear from them. Sorry to be
the bearer of bad tidings.
Bill
The Ranger wrote:
My pear tree died a very painful and messy death -- so says the nursery
I
brought some of the curled leaves and dried twigs to for examination. He
labeled the problem, fire blight. He, unfortunately, was unable to
provide
much of anything else in the way of help, though, like aside from
removing
the dead tree, how much of the soil should remain behind, how should I
go
about preparing the soil for another sapling, how long I should allow
the
ground to remain free of any future saplings, etc.
I'd like to plant another bareroot sapling in this area but not at the
cost
of the tree.
Any thoughts/ideas?
Many thanks
The Ranger
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