fire-blight resistant perry pears?

[Jeff Coffey]

Hi all! 

I'm looking for suggestions for fire-blight resistant perry pears, zone 5b (Michigan). Last year was extremely wet and I lost my Normanischen and Bartlett. This year was extremely dry and the remainder of the varieties are now showing significant blight (Gin, Brandy, Butt, Yellow Huffcap). They are/were all 7-10 years old and just starting to bear. I spray with sulfur in the spring (pre-green tip) and use Captan or Captain Jack Orchard Spray several times in the spring and summer. The apples in the same space are showing much better FB resistance. Any suggestions for new perry varieties or blight control are welcome. 

-Jeff

[Michael]

Does callery pear grow in Michigan? If so, you could get yourself some pollen and fertilize your perry pear varieties with it.
I know that doesn't sound like a ready-made solution, but at some point we have to take matters into our own hand and breed the varieties adapted to the place we farm.
The time for global solutions to local problems in ending rapidly.

[Jeremy Hall]

I'm in the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon where Fireflight has been a huge problem for culinary pears (comice and bosc mostly) for many decades.  I'm growing perry pears and dealing with fireflight.  We've had 10 year old trees go from looking healthy to completely dying in a week before I got my practices more vigilant.  It's a devastating bacterial disease that is borne from tree to tree, mostly spread by insects who find the sweet, dark discharge from infected trees irresistible.  I'll let you know what I've been recommended to do by the local extension researchers.

I don't know of any magic bullets.   OHxF 87 seems to be the best rootstock for resistance.  None of the trees I planted are immune.   Barnet seems to be the most susceptible to fireblight and Romanian seems to be the most resistant.  Green horse, Oldfield, Martin Sec, and Gelbmostler seem to be better than Barland, Thorn, Butt, and the Huffcaps.

In addition to dormant copper sprays, the best spraying regime that we've been recommended to use is antibiotic during flowering.  Does Captian Jack have an antibacterial agent?  When the temperatures are mild, above 60 degrees F, the bacterial loads inside the nectaries of the blooming trees spike dramatically, and it is during flowering that trees seem the most susceptible.    Getting antibiotic into the nectaries when bees are active seems to help a lot.  The sprays are only effective on open flowers.  We've been recommended to use Agri-Mycin and Mycoshield cocktail with horticultural oil to help it stick.  I spray every 3 days during flowering.  A gas powered backback sprayer on a blower platform helps get a mist up high enough to get into flowers.

After flowering, I walk the orchard every couple days in the spring and summer, looking for any sign of infected twings.  Black twig tips with the classic shepherd's crook are a telltale sign.  Getting them cut off, bagged up and out of the orchard immediately helps.  Once you see multiple branches dying back and black discolored bark on the trunk the tree is lost.  Disinfecting tools with alcohol is good, but being aggressive and cutting out any infected twig, branch or tree immediately seems to be most important.

Good luck, and I'd be interested to hear any other folks' experience controlling fireblight.

Jeremy, Blossom Barn Cidery

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[moo...@gmail.com]

This is the first year I started using / had access to Agriphage (https://www.7springsfarm.com/products/agriphage-fireblight) and it's been a potential game-changer for me. The biggest advantage is as a curative treatment and I've actually seen new growth sprouting right up to the shepherd's crook after treatment. Brittany Kordick has done a lot of research on Agriphage and you can take a look of this thread for lots more detail (http://groworganicapples.com/phorum/read.php?14,3817).

Additionally, for my part I've already found several local (Northeast Ohio) wild seedling bitter pears and 100+ year old pear trees that simply must be able to withstand a certain amount of fb pressure. I'm grafting those back into the orchard and I'm actually more excited about developing those than trying to find a spray program that will allow me to keep my 8 year old English perry pears from dying spectacularly the first year they bloom. But at least with Agriphage, I'm willing to give them a shot.

Matt

[Martin Thoburn]

I also have two wild tannic pear varieties found in the forest of SE Michigan that should be dressed resisted as well.  Maybe we can do a scion exchange and get some local perry pears 🍐 going on our region.  

[Jeremy Hall]

I'll add Agriphage to my toolbox.   There has been some research on these more biological controls. https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/pear/bactericide-efficacybiocontrols-and-natural-products/

On our smaller scale applications where we can be more hands and eyes on, these controls may be more effective than listed here.  

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cider-workshop/046c5536-9405-4c13-a970-1f73bee208e1n%40googlegroups.com.

[moo...@gmail.com]

A regional scion exchange sounds great Martin! Maybe we can get something going next winter in this group. I have a lot of wild scion wood (apples and pears) from a variety of sources in the Northeast I'd be happy to share if people are interested.

Re: Agriphage — The main difference between Agriphage and those listed in the link is that I've never able to go out post infection and spot-spray shoot and blossom blight and have any effect. I think that's the main way I'll be integrating it into a broader spray program. You can apply dormant copper followed by probiotic / competitive colonization sprays and then hit troubled areas with Agriphage as a last resort.

Matt