Lou, I held off responding because I was hoping to be wrong and to see someone else answer with better news, but it looks like fireblight to me.

Rapidly-growing young shoots, wet (warm?) weather, fertilyzation- they all combine to encourage fire blight.

I hope I'm wrong. If it's any consolation the scions you sent me two years ago seem to be OK right now.

Best,

Mark

I would also guess fireblight. I see similar leaf damage on my apples sometimes and it is always during fireblight season. Fireblight has several modes of attack - blossom, shoot tip, bark, and my guess is this is some other leaf tip form. It could also be some other disease, hard to say for sure.

Scott

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that it's not fireblight. My reasoning is that the blackening is happening at the outside leaf margins. And I don't see any blackening, drooping, or bending of the growing tip's main stem area. If the growth tip blackens and bends, then I'll agree with the fireblight assessment.
So what is it then? Well... er... uh... heck, I don't know. But I will say it looks alot like what I see on my pear trees on an occasional branch, and ends up as no problem. If this were my tree, I'd wait it out and hope for the best. But keep in mind I'm no expert.

I want to thank you people for offering a few suggestions.
Since the time I posted this well exactly yesterday afternoon between rain downpours I drove to a person two blocks away who owns and runs a small nursery and also sells the produce he grows on his farm.

This guy Tom is very savvy in things concerning plants. He attended courses on all that stuff. He is always very busy working the whole operation by himself. Knowing that I drove up to his place just before his closing time and asked him if he would come down to my yard to look the pear tree over. Tcstoehr he said about the same thing you are stating in your post.
He also said it could be caused by some decencies in the soil but could not be sure of that. He also suggested that I take off two leaves and send them out to Penn State Ag-center to see what they can come up with.

I remembered my relative living in Switzerland a few years back when I had a loquat tree for years that was affected at times with what I called rust but the ends of the effected leaves did turn black as well. This was container grown and wintered indoors. I called him way back then and told him what I was dealing with at that time. Since he also has Loquat trees he recommended and sent me four packs of the substance in the photo below.

It seemed to work on that tree. I found this last pack by accident and decided to mix it in the pump sprayer and try it on the tree.
I don't understand the language written on the package so I not even sure if it for the purpose I'm using it for.

Mark I hope your grafts do what they are expected to do for you. Let me know when you get the first fruit from any one of them
Lou
{{gwi:114135}}

Thanks to all of you.

I just wanted to inform people that I had my pear tree problem resolved by sending an inquiry including the photos I had attached above. From the report back it looks like Mark was correct. You can read what the center emailed me and below that see the form I had to fill out to get their opinion. They also sent a link for me to read. I did inform Mark that it looks like what he stated above was correct.
Lou

Hi Lou,
Bad news. It really looks like your tree had fire blight. It's not good. See http://fpath.cas.psu.edu/Fruit_facts/Apple/FBAP.html for more info and management. I think your tree variety is one of the Clapp's. It's listed as suseptible to Fire Blight. There are pears that are less suseptable but none are immune (that I know of).
FYI, the easiest tree fruit to grow is probably a disease resistant apple (Liberty is one variety, there are several others). You will still have to spray to control insects but as least disease/fungus should not be a problem.
Thanks for the photos, they help a lot. Good luck with your tree.
Jean

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pezzuti@verizon.net [mailto:pezzuti@verizon.net]
Sent: Fri 6/19/2009 7:55 PM
To: Lehigh MG
Subject: Plant Problem Form Submission

Plant Problem Submitted: 6/19/2009 7:55:13 PM

Contact Information
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Lou Pezzuti
Address: 139 Todd Lane
PA 18235
County: Carbon
Phone:
E-Mail: pezzuti@verizon.net

Plant Information
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Plant: young grafted pear tree
Variety: Clapps
Problem: Mewlwy formed leaves are discoloring. Tips ofa few
of the leaves turn black and some curl.
trunk does not seem to be effected.
Tree is very small yet.
Symptoms appeared: After leaves appeared on the tree
Occured before?: No
Plant part affected: Leaves

Symptoms
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yellowing:
Browning: Interveinal
Wilting
Other: I can provide a photo taken just a few days ago. Lots of
rain this spring

Type of Planting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yard

Problem Area
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunny

Soil Type
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Clay

Soil Moisture
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Terrain
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sloped

Drainage
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good

Size of Planting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Acres:
Sq Ft:
# of Plants: 1

Extent of Problem
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
% of plants affected:
# of plants affected: 1

Trees/Shrubs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximate Age: 3 feet
Height:
How long in present location?: 2nd season

Chemicals Applied This Season & Previous Season
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fertilizer: Early spring table spoon 5/10/10 sprinkled around drip line.
Fungicide: Told to use copper dusting-did so.
Insecticide: 3 in 1 garden control
Herbicide:
Nematicide:

Disturbances
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Turf-grass
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I added these things mentiond above and also sprayed with Sevin
and also added Epson Salts-1 tblspoon to gallon of water. I have a photo
stored on photobucket.com. I am going to see if I can paste the address
here to see if you can see the two photos of same tree.
Thank you for your time
Lou Pezzuti.
http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k215/pezzuti9/?action=view&current=Sicktree2.jpg

http://s89.photobucket.com/albums/k215/pezzuti9/?action=view&current=Sicktree3.jpg

Lou if it makes you feel any better I have similar damage on my apple shoot tips now as well. I think all this rain brought it on. Fortunately we have a stretch of sunny weather to give the trees a chance to recover. I am not doing anything myself now to treat it, but I may spray some streptomycin if it starts getting any worse.

Your spray label has the ingredients in the lower right - captan and it looks like penc-somethingorother.

Scott

my pear tree is sick and the squirrels eat the fruit before they are bigger than a quarter size HELP PLEASE