Nova Scotia apple growers are fighting an outbreak of fire blight that threatens next year’s crops. The bacterium likely arrived with tropical storm Arthur and has affected nearly every orchard in the province.

While this year’s apples are healthy and nearly ready for harvesting, thousands of new trees have been badly damaged.

Andy Parker planted thousands of trees in his Berwick orchard last year, but they were badly damaged by the blight. The trees were essentially pruned into twigs in an effort to cut out the blight.

“Probably between 1,000 and 2,000 trees. Maybe even a little higher than that. Depends on how they survive the winter,” he said.

Robert Peill’s Port Williams orchard suffered too. "In this block there, about 700 trees that are gone. And there is no hope for what you see here. That's pretty well dead stuff,” he said.90% of orchards hit

Chris Duyvelshoff, a horticulturist with the Crown agency Perennia, said it was a dire situation. "The worst we've ever experienced here in Nova Scotia. Over 90 per cent of the orchards are affected in some way,” he said.

Pruning in the weeks after Arthur helped limit some of the damage on mature trees but the new ones were too small to survive. "We are talking roughly in the neighbourhood of about 10,000 trees industry-wide,” he said.

Apple growers hope the worst of the blight is over, and that some of the trees will recover to bear fruit next year.

Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/