Hello Fellow Gardeners! Desperately need HELP! We have a mature pear tree (30 years+)and it's our first. At the base of the trunk there is a vertical split where it seems the carpentar ants are eating the center of the tree out. Can that split be filled to keep the ants out, or is the tree doomed? Next, the leaves are covered with black spots--what is it and what to do? Lastly, lots of immature pears had black stems and fell off. Is that normal or a disease? Would appreciate any feed-back related to maintaining a pear tree! Thanks! Dieter

-- Dieter H. Seyferth (jaheder@aol.com), July 07, 2001

Answers

Your tree has fire blight. you are going to have to prune out the infected branches and shoots. look for signs of infections and cut from 6 up to 12 inches below the signs of infection. sterilize your pruners in alcohol between cuts. then spray one good time with streptomycin. then in late winter prune your tree and spray with a dormant oil.

as for your split trunk try to get rid of the ants as much as possible. One way is pouring hot water over the trunk, then make sure trunk is dry and coat with diluted white latex paint and wrap it with tree wrapping. then mulch several feet out from tree 6 or 8 inches deep with straw or other organic mulch making sure you keep it 6 to 8 inches away from the tree trunk.

Come spring begin again spraying with streptomycin just before the flowers open,then every 4 days during bloom,then after bloom spray every week until fruit appears.

-- TomK (tjk@cac.net), July 07, 2001.

Regarding wrapping fruit trees, my daughter & I had unfortunate experiences with plastic "wind-around" wrap, and a burlap wrap - we should never have left them on for a long period of time! Moisture gets under the wrap, the trunk really never dries out, and rot sets in. In one instance, a young apple tree just fell over from wind because the trunk was rotted & weak under the wrapping (we had left it on year round). We were trying to protect the trees from deer rubbing their antlers on the trunk, and from bunnies eating the bark. Perhaps we'll just do it over winter, and take them off in the spring. Anyone else have a situation like that?

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), July 07, 2001.

For the split trunk, you can dig out as much of the dead, damaged wood as possible, drill holes from one side through to the other drive rods through and put large 'washers' on each end of the rod on the out side of the tree, secure these with a spot weld or a lock nut, it looks something like a ladder rung going through the tree, use as many as needed in any direction needed, space them about 10 inches apart. Them fill the cavity with concrete, and seal it on the top to keep out water. And get a good book on pruning, it is hard to learn with out pictures.

-- Thumper (slrldr@aol.com), July 07, 2001.

Thanks fro all the responses. Here's the game plan. Install the support rods and apply mortat/cement this season. Paint the trunk, clean out the inside ( which by the way I just happened to do today out of curiosity)and next spring start spraying.I don't recognize streptomycin, we have a small lot in the city and a 2 yr old running around and am concerned about safe area. If it's not that safe in close quarters can there be a substitute. Pruning is no problem, have alot of help for that. These ideas all seem to make sense and I will try them, I dont' want to loose this tree it is producing a ton of pears. There is only one more thing......PLEASE SEND HARD HATS.

-- (jaheder@aol.com), July 09, 2001.