Fire blight resistance, irrigation and conducive wet weather improve winter survival in cankers.

causes fire blight, a disease responsible for enormous economic losses in the pome fruit-producing areas where it is present. Despite the abundant research on fire blight, information about population dynamics and survival in fire blight cankers and the plant defense responses to this pathogen in the infected bark are limited. In our study, we obtained fire blight cankers in apple, pear, and Asian pear cultivars showing differing resistance to the disease by shoot inoculation with .

Proof of Concept for Shoot Blight and Fire Blight Canker Management with Postinfection Spray Applications of Prohexadione-Calcium and Acibenzolar--Methyl in Apple.

To reduce the severity of shoot blight and prevent the resulting development of cankers on perennial apple wood, we evaluated eight fire blight postinfection spray programs of prohexadione-calcium (PCA) alone or with acibenzolar--methyl (ASM) over 2 years. On mature trees of cultivar Royal Court, a single application of the high PCA rate (247 mg/liter) at 2 to 3 days after inoculation resulted in 89.5 and 69.

Publisher Correction: Development of a viability digital PCR protocol for the selective detection and quantification of live Erwinia amylovora cells in cankers.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Development of a viability digital PCR protocol for the selective detection and quantification of live Erwinia amylovora cells in cankers.

Fire blight is a devastating disease of apple and pear caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora. One of its main symptoms is canker formation on perennial tissues which may lead to the death of limbs and/or the entire tree. E.