This has been a very bad year for fireblight in my orchard as well, though only for my apples, with no strikes so far on any of my European or Asian pears, some of which grow in close proximity to the diseased apples. Particularly hard hit have been my Braeburn, Winesap, and Jonathan. I did not spray any antibiotics, and my copper sprays were late dormant, probably too early to have been very effective for this disease.

Creek, I also get it badly on apples but not on pears. I expect there are different strains and the one I have all the problems with is an apple-favoring strain. This year I have been finding a few strikes every time I visit the orchard, nothing ever major but always the half dozen strikes in my 150 or so dwarf trees.

Scott

Oh I am logging which apples are getting strikes, here is a list. Most trees are not getting any strikes and I am planning on thinning out the worst offenders to lessen the problem. I had no FB last year and that was my first quince-free year. Those guys are FB magnets. One thing I need to do is I believe there are two categories of sensitivity, one is on late blooms and the other is on shoots. Late bloomers nearly always get blight, but later in the summer they can be fine since it was only the blooms that was the problem. Blenheim Orange for example seems to mainly be a problem due to late blooms; is has been OK the last several weeks since all the blooms are finally gone.

Extremely sensitive:
Canada Reinette (removed)
Orleans Reinette (remove)
Red Berlepsch (remove)
Maunerbe
Reinette du Mans
Court Pendu Plat

Very Sensitive:
Blenheim Orange
Fuero Rous (on late blooms only)
Rambour d'Hiver
Tydeman's Late Orange
Marie Menard
Margil
Akane
Reinette Armorique
Pigeonnet Rouge

Sensitive:
Myers Royal Limbertwig
Claygate Pearmain
Freyburg
Pitmaston Pineapple
Rubinette
Cox's Orange Pippin
Yellow Bellflower
Gold Rush (but could be that it is too close to some baddies)

I have had almost no fireblight (save on a quince I removed) the last five years, but this year I have had extensive fireblight on apple trees. Interestingly, my Williams Pride and Enterprise -- both fireblight resistant varieties -- were both hit, though the disease seems to be contained. My Grimes Golden, next to them, showed no signs of problems. My pears have suffered virtually no damage.

I think we're seeing a lot of fireblight this year due to the wacky weather exposing the apple blossoms for an extended period.
Scott, you're scaring me with the Orleans Reinette concerns with fireblight.
I'll just have to keep a discriminating eye on it.

Triploid and fireblight prone, it better be good. :)

-Eric
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Eric, Orleans Reinette has proved to be a big problem on the late blooms only; it has been clean for several weeks now. I am starting to wonder if it is not worth the effort to just trim off those late blooms in future years, the apples will be small anyway.

Scott

Scott,

Good tip, noted.
Thanks.

-Eric
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Interested to hear fireblight experience with any of the limbertwig varieties, especially black, brushy mtn and myers royal. Please email reply to hambone@goeaston.net.

Thanks

Steve

Black and Myers Royal have been good w.r.t fireblight - some of my most resistant apples.

Scott

I don't believe I had any more fireblight on any of my apples this year -- or if I did it wasn't enough to remember -- despite continuing problems (that really started in 2012, which I still think of as the really bad fireblight year) on my pears and Asian pears. Of the 3 European pears and 5 Asian pears, the Comice, as I already noted, caught fireblight and completely died in 2011, the cow-damaged Moonglow had severe fireblight again in 2013 so I finally took it out in favor of grafts that are in hopefully less fireblight prone microclimates, and I'll probably do the same with Kieffer soon once I get a couple grafts of it established elsewhere -- it had a lot of fireblight again, not quite enough to threaten to kill the whole tree but enough to take the whole pear crop. I think my 2 remaining Shinkos and 2 Korean Giants all had some fireblight again in 2013. I took out the one Shinko at the end of 2012 that fireblight had all but completely killed off by the end of that year. One of the other two Shinkos recovered from pretty bad 2012 damage in 2013, but I pretty much lost the other one in 2013, even though it had had the least damage in 2012. I lost a nice scaffold or two on the Korean Giants in the last couple years, along with several little spurs and tips, but in my very limited experience they seem to be a little less fireblight susceptible than Shinko. I think I read that the reverse is supposed to be true.

As far as Brushy Mountain limbertwig, I wouldn't be at all hesitant to plant it in a fireblight prone area. I wonder, though, if there are different strains of fireblight in different areas, some of which affect pears worse than apples. Oddly enough, the only apples that I might think twice about with regards to fireblight are Enterprise and Williams Pride, but as central a concern as fireblight is for me with pears, I have yet to see it being much of a serious threat with hardly any of my apples.

Steve, by the way, I got your e-mail, but it said, "(PLEASE NOTE: The member responding to your post has chosen not to reveal his or her email address. Therefore, you cannot reply to this message via email.)" I think I answered your questions here, but I'd be glad to communicate directly, too, if you want to send me your e-mail address.

Floyd, I strongly suspect there are different strains, some of which like apples more than pears and some vice-versa. I seem to only get the apple-bad strains, I have many fireblight susceptible pears but have almost no problems.

BTW I noticed in an old post above I put Myers Royal Limbertwig down as somewhat susceptible to FB but I think it was due to its location, it was surrounded by the most sensitive varieties. Since I removed those varieties it has had no fireblight. In general my view for the home grower is avoid the extremely susceptible varieties and you will be OK. All it takes is a few susceptible varieties to seed the infection and you will have mass outbreaks in all your apples for years to come.

Scott