Fruitless Pair Fire blight

[te tat do]

I have a 25-30 year old mature fruitless pair in my driveway that's been thriving and growing for years. This year I noticed that it had some dead shoots coming off of the growth. looking at it closer it appears the tree has fire blight. I've lost so many trees at my property, and this one gives my beloved car shade. I cant stand losing it.

Starting mid may, i decided to carefully prune, as much as possible, any dead and dying branches as far low as I could. trying to stay at least 8 inches into good tissue. I mixed a 10 parts water to 1 part bleach into a spray, and sprayed down and wiped my pruner between cuts. I didnt realize there's a contact time between cuttings of a minute or two, but i did heavily spray down the pruner between cuttings and wiped it clean.

Now I seem to be in a cat and mouse game with more blight happening every week or two. It's not a whole lot, but every time i think i've taken off all the fire blight I can find, a week or two I see more branches wither and die, to the tune of 3-4 a week. These are smaller shoots and not necessarily very large branches, but there are a few larger ones.

What's the prognosis for my tree? What happens with fire blight? this is the first season I've noticed it. Is my tree doomed? Did I make it worse by not waiting enough time for the bleach to work between cuttings? I'm quite nervous I'm going to lose yet another tree.

I can post pictures if it helps.

[MorpheusPA]

(Pinches nose) You're not having great luck with trees, are you?

Fire blight isn't curable, regrettably, but you can spray early in the season from bloom time through the rainy periods (about the end of June for you guys) to keep it on the run, and as you're doing, pruning back impacted branches to remove them and discard them away from the trees (and bleaching between cuts, as you're doing).

You really didn't make it that much worse by not waiting sufficiently between cuts. Bleach, while it works best with a wait time of 1-2 minutes, still kills 99+% of germs in the first ten seconds or so. And you were already cutting infected branches, so it's not like you're rubbing the pruner against healthy wood. I can't say I ever bother to wait the full minute myself, except when cleaning planting trays and supplies, where I may bleach-soak at a greater bleach density for more than an hour and follow with UV exposure.

The prognosis, eventually, for the tree is that it's going to die. However, if you treat, spray, and prune, it may not die before its natural lifespan is over, which for a fruitless pear is anything from 15 to 40 years, depending. Mine have just turned 17 and are still in perfect health, with no breakage issues.

When it does go, choose a resistant cultivar or tree that doesn't get fire blight; it's now in the soil and your next pear tree would get it as well.

[te tat do]

Nope. I dont have good luck in general. Ive lost 6 or 7 mature trees at this property in the last 8 years of ownership. 3 fully grown mature california peppers. 2 of those were for unkown reasons. 1 due to wind.

I also lost 2 brazillian peppers due to armarilla fungus, both were very large and mature, also lost a large mature fruitless pair to armarilla as well.

I also lost a few photinia trees as well. at this point i've lost count. it makes me sad.

It drives me insane because i try to be dilligent.

Thanks for your advice. I'll keep an eye on the tree and this one is the most devastating to lose, as its so beautiful. I hope it wont be any time soon.