controlling pear scab

12 years ago

Hello,

I have a Seckel pear tree that is several years old, and sets lots of fruit. Unfortunately, the last couple years all the fruit has been ruined by scab.

In the fall of 2012 I tried cultural control, by raking up all the leaves in the fall, but the tree is underplanted with other things, so it's hard to really clean up the ground there. I didn't notice any difference last year, so I thought I'd try the fungicide approach this year (I gathered the leaves this past fall as well)

Any tips? I gather that some kind of copper spray applied as the leaves are emerging should help a lot. Any specific brand or formulation I should look for?

Alex

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Comments (3)

Tony
12 years ago
Alex,

In the link below is the article for treating pear scab.

Tony

Here is a link that might be useful: Controlling pear scab
alan haigh
12 years ago
Once scab is in the tree it becomes more difficult to control for me than apple scab in apples or any insect pest I'm called on to deal with, besides maybe pear psyla. In my own orchard it never showed for the first 10 years, but when it did Seckel was the hardest pear in which to get it under control. By hard, I mean having to do about 5 or 6 sprays with an appropriate fungicide in a season about every two weeks beginning at first sign of green and every 2 weeks following. Your best option is probably Manzate, Mancozeb.

You can graft other pears in the tree to gradually change over so you aren't dependent on Seckels. To me, many pears are more or less interchangeable so it is best to go with ones less fussy in your climate.

Dutchess, Sheldon and Magness seem to be low effort pears here and all are less attractive to squirrels than Seckel and out of patent.

I haven't had to keep a special regimen on my Seckels and enjoy them from my orchard now that scab is under control. Sometimes what you think is scab may be fabracea leaf spot which is much more a problem when psyla is in the trees. Find out what psyla looks like and get a good glass to monitor for it. Last two seasons haven't been that wet, so it is surprising that scab would show up for the first time in your tree now.
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windfall_rob
12 years ago
Well,
It nice to hear my trouble dealing with pear scab has not been incompetence...or at least may not be incompetence;)

Been fighting it for two seasons now on a harrow sweet.
Cut it back hard last spring before bud break to remove all the twig lesions. Raked up leaves, and sprayed frequently with sulfur.....to no avail, the fruit was covered this year, and many new twig infections.
Fortunately it has not yet seemed to spread to any other trees, not even the varieties it shares the the tree with(vermont beauty, and hudor). I suppose it must be notably susceptible but I have seen no reference to that anywhere.

I think it either has to come out, or I need to use some synthetics on it this year....or possibly both in an effort to push it out before the problem grows.