hello, I got an allotment in April with lots of apple trees on it. Two or three are showing signs of fireblight - as is a really old cox apple tree on a neighbouring plot.
one tree is small and I can cut the branches no problem. the other tree is huge and the fire blight is on the uppermost branches.
I will cut off what I can when it stops raining. but has anybody on this forum had it on their trees ??? and am I correct in thinking that if not removed from all the branches of my trees and the neighbours tree it will keep coming back?
thanks Nora
All I can say is that my daughter's tree in Greenwich has definite fireblight. It is very unsightly and depressing.
She and her husband have climbed up ladders to chop off the nasty bits in past years, but this year it is just the same - the ends of branches are shrivelling and blackening.
On the plus side, it produces loads and loads of perfectly good apples....so maybe it doesn't matter?
I thought it just affected pears,,, :-\
http://www.caf.wvu.edu/kearneysville/disease_descriptions/omblight.html
The pictures depressingly match what happens to daughter's apple tree every year. Strangely it is quite close to three pear trees which are unaffected so far.
She could try cutting the branches right back to the trunk; hopefully that'll get rid of everything, and if it's in the trunk you probably can't save the tree anyway. Don't cut everything back in one year, and especially don't cut the top branch till last. If you just hack everything you might kill the tree.
ok so I went there today and chopped of some of the affected branches as far back as I could - it does look as though the tree has had it before and so I will see what happens, sadly it looks like it is also on the morrello cherry tree which has some fruit but less than the ammount of blossom I am putting that down to the appalingly bad weather we have had recently.
the big tree is out of my reach
Nora
You have to cut out every bit of the affected wood, so you probably need to hack them drastically if you're going to have any chance of saving them. Don't cut all the branches off a tree at the same time though!