Fire blight pt II

By Terence Bradshaw

Sometimes you need to check the latest weather before hitting ‘send’…

After I just sent that last missive, I double-checked conditions in western Vermont, specifically Shoreham and Bennington, and the weather prediction is indeed for warmer weather than when I last looked. NEWA is now calling for “Infection” on Monday for those two sites, but the EIP is just barely over 100 (107 and 103, respectively) and drops down the next day as cooler weather moves in. I’m going to stick with my old gut response to not worry about fire blight, with a slight caveat. If you have a history of the disease, have especially susceptible plantings (Gala, Fuji, some cider varieties), are in bloom on Monday, and things warm up over the weekend, consider applying streptomycin on Monday or Tuesday, within 24 hours of infection. Keep an eye on NEWA for further details.

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