Articles
FIRE BLIGHT: BARRIERS TO CONTROL IN THE PAST AND PRESENT/FUTURE CONTROL STRATEGIES
Article number
1056_1
Pages
29 – 38
Language
English
Abstract
There is a great body of information about fire blight and its management based on research and field experience.
With the current state of knowledge and technology, excellent control can be attained most years utilizing an integrated program of careful sanitation of the orchard and its neighborhood, weather monitoring, modeling of infection conditions, orchard surveillance, and properly timed appropriate rates of currently available effective spray materials.
However, when all the conditions are conducive for fire blight infection, it is almost certain that some orchards in the region being monitored will develop fire blight, while many others do not.
Thousands of hectares are damaged by fire blight almost every year, while most orchards rarely have a problem with this disease.
Fire blight may appear in an orchard that has not had the disease in many years, taking the grower by complete surprise.
The disease must seem to most growers to occur without warning.
In many cases, fruit growers escape damage due to weather conditions not being conducive for infection while their trees are blooming, rather than by effective management practices.
This disease is spreading rapidly into new regions of the world.
It is important to many in the non-agricultural sectors that valuable fruit trees and ornamental plants survive the introduction of this pathogen.
Many of these hosts are of great economic, personal and historic value and are owned or managed by people who are not professional farmers, so there is an urgent need for practical, economical, low technology control procedures and effective educational programs available for both farmers and the general public.
The ultimate improved management of this disease will rely heavily upon the breeding of fire blight resistant apple and pear cultivars.
This effort has gained some incremental success, but none of the major cultivars currently produced in any significant volume, other than Red Delicious, are sufficiently blight resistant.
There are economic and practical barriers to the near-term success of cultivar breeding as an answer to the problem existing growers have with this disease.
The development of some high quality blight resistant cultivars may solve only part of the problem, as growers may choose to grow susceptible current or heritage cultivars to fill market demand.
There may be a fifty-year effort before this breeding for resistance effort has somewhat resolved the problem.
In the interim, it will be necessary to continue to improve the tools, education and technology needed by fruit growers to protect their trees or orchards from periodic severe damage caused by fire blight.
With the current state of knowledge and technology, excellent control can be attained most years utilizing an integrated program of careful sanitation of the orchard and its neighborhood, weather monitoring, modeling of infection conditions, orchard surveillance, and properly timed appropriate rates of currently available effective spray materials.
However, when all the conditions are conducive for fire blight infection, it is almost certain that some orchards in the region being monitored will develop fire blight, while many others do not.
Thousands of hectares are damaged by fire blight almost every year, while most orchards rarely have a problem with this disease.
Fire blight may appear in an orchard that has not had the disease in many years, taking the grower by complete surprise.
The disease must seem to most growers to occur without warning.
In many cases, fruit growers escape damage due to weather conditions not being conducive for infection while their trees are blooming, rather than by effective management practices.
This disease is spreading rapidly into new regions of the world.
It is important to many in the non-agricultural sectors that valuable fruit trees and ornamental plants survive the introduction of this pathogen.
Many of these hosts are of great economic, personal and historic value and are owned or managed by people who are not professional farmers, so there is an urgent need for practical, economical, low technology control procedures and effective educational programs available for both farmers and the general public.
The ultimate improved management of this disease will rely heavily upon the breeding of fire blight resistant apple and pear cultivars.
This effort has gained some incremental success, but none of the major cultivars currently produced in any significant volume, other than Red Delicious, are sufficiently blight resistant.
There are economic and practical barriers to the near-term success of cultivar breeding as an answer to the problem existing growers have with this disease.
The development of some high quality blight resistant cultivars may solve only part of the problem, as growers may choose to grow susceptible current or heritage cultivars to fill market demand.
There may be a fifty-year effort before this breeding for resistance effort has somewhat resolved the problem.
In the interim, it will be necessary to continue to improve the tools, education and technology needed by fruit growers to protect their trees or orchards from periodic severe damage caused by fire blight.
Publication
Authors
T.J. Smith
Keywords
fire blight, control principles, Erwinia amylovora, apple breeding, resistance
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