IThis page links to my pages dealing with Fire Blight.
HORTICULTURE
Fire Blight Pages
IThis page links to my pages dealing with Fire Blight.
Fire blight is a serious disease of apples and pears. It appeared in the Northeastern United States soon after apples arrived in the New World. Fire blight is a perennial problem for Southwest Michigan Apple Growers. Fire blight is caused by a bacterium which is harmless to humans. Fire blight attacks all the tissues of the trees; blossoms, leaves, shoots, branches, fruits, and roots. Initially the disease often enters the tree through flowers during bloom. The bacteria can also enter through wounds such as those caused by hail, insects, summer pruning or deer feeding. Even a summer thunderstorm can damage the tree and allow the disease to enter. Once established in the tree, fire blight quickly kills the current season's growth and moves into older growth. Death of infected branches is so rapid that the leaves do not have time to fall off the tree. Young trees can easily be killed by the infection. Older mature trees usually survive even if all the new growth is killed. Heavy rainstorms can spread blight and result in what is known as "trauma" blight.
The keys to managing fire blight are; understanding the disease, reducing the amount of bacteria in your orchards, knowing when to treat during bloom and understanding how to reduce the spread of the disease.
Apple variety susceptibility to fire blight is important
to know.
Apple Variety susceptibility determined in the 2000 Fire Blight
Epidemic
Apple Variety susceptibility determined in the 1991 Fire Blight
Epidemic
Managing Fireblight deals with
cultural practices that reduce fire blight and the different chemical controls used in
Michigan. One important step is to prune out fire blight cankers in the dormant
period. Prune out fire blight.
If you already have fire blight in your orchards see Fighting Fire Blight.
I have posted Pictures of Fire blight Symptoms, which traces the development of the fire blight disease from the beginning of the season through fall. This file contains numerous pictures and descriptions of the progression of the disease during the growing season. I have smaller pages; Fire Blight Blossom Blight Symptoms
Other MSU Fire Blight Sites and Pages
The MSU Enviroweather website allows you to run predictive models of diseases including fireblight.
Dr. George Sundin is the new bacterial plant pathologist at MSU's Department of Plant Pathology. He is carrying on the fireblight research In Michigan.
Dr. Dave Roberts has posted a page on Managing fire blight in ornamentals plants, crab apples, hawthorns, cotoneaster.
Nutritional And Other Factors Influencing Susceptibility
There are literally hundreds of fire blight articles and notes in the MSU Landscape and Fruit CAT Alerts. The easiest way to look at them all is to Search the MSU web pages. You should search for fireblight as both one word and two words.
Fire Blight Pages Elsewhere
There are many pages on the Internet that deal with Fire blight. the Links below are the best I have found.See the Fire blight Articles posted by Alan Biggs at the University of West Virginia.
Timothy Smith at Wenatchee has posted some excellent material on fire blight control in Washington State. He has even developed a predictive model called CougarBlight. Start with his Fire Blight Management Page.
Cornell has a real nice Factsheet on Fire blight. They also post CougarBlight predictions for the major apple growing areas of New York.
