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Fire Blight Resistance in Apple

Fire Blight (Erwinia amylovora) is a bacterial disease found in apples and pears that normally results in tree mortality and serious financial loss to the farmer. There are few management tools available to control Fire Blight and many of the popular varieties are highly susceptible to this tree fruit disease. Current control practices rely on the spraying of antibiotics, and in many regions Fire Blight has built up a resistance to such approaches.

OSF is working on a genetic engineering solution to this problem by using approaches which would make apple varieties resistant to this disease. The approach is to silence existing receptor genes in the apple variety so the disease does not have a means to attack the plant. Using Fire Blight resistant apple varieties and apple genomics, target genes have been identified and the means to inhibit their activity developed. OSF feels that Fire Blight resistance in new apple varieties and their rootstocks will help remove a serious disease problem in our orchards.

We will continue to assess other disease resistant apple variety opportunities as advancements in apple genomic data continues to become available.