PROJECT OBJECTIVES
THE DISEASE BURDEN
Fire blight, caused by Erwinia amylovora, is a devastating bacterial disease of many rosaceous plants with great commercial interest, especially pome fruit species. Erwinia amylovora is native to North America and was introduced into northern Europe in the 1950-1960s. Today, it is globally distributed.
TODAY’S FIRE BLIGHT MANAGEMENT MAJOR CHALLENGE: LACK OF AN EFFICIENT TREATMENT
Although, infected brunches can be successfully pruned, this does not constitute an efficient treatment of fire blight. Today, there is not an official cure for this disease and there have been cases that people have been misled into expensive treatments which led the disease to have been spread because homeowners were taken in by the fraudulent claims for a cure.
Overall, current fire blight control measures lack of full efficacy, are expensive, labour-intensive and difficult to implement. Thus, proper orchard management against fire blight is mainly conditioned by the limited preventive measures to face the explosive nature of epidemics and its great tree-killing ability. In consequence, this disease results in substantial economic losses for growers, significantly threating the pome fruit industry worldwide. Economic pressures and both environmental and trade regulations support the urgent need for alternative solutions to overcome present fire blight control and management challenges.