Pear Trees and possible Fireblight

Last year I bought a couple of miniature pear trees from GardenBargains.com, one for mum and one for myself. I went to see mum over the last two weeks and this is what I saw. As far as I am aware the tree had not flowered. The leaves had gone soft and flopped. After a day or two they started to go brown and eventually were going brown all over. The small twigs had a bit of dieback. I have just returned and although my tree does not have floppy leaves they are starting to turn a bit brown around the edges. It did not flower either. Is this Fireblight or could it be something else? If it is Fireblight where could it have come from? Can anyone help please?

I shall be so grateful for any assistance. My mum will be so disappointed if it is Fireblight. I have cut all her leaves on the little branches off and all she has left is a 3 foot stick.

 

Any chance of some photos? It sounds more like overwatering to me. Can we have some more information on the growing methods used?:thumb:

 

Thank you very much for your reply - there are 3 photos attached hopefully. The trees which are miniatures arrived last Spring, but were dead, our replacements were planted last September. I planted both mum's and mine. Our soil is clay so I put well rotted manure and homemade compost at the bottom of the hole. I watered every day for two weeks. Then it was left over the winter and spring. In this dry spell over the last few weeks I have started to give it half a bucket of water every day over the last week or two as the leaves have started to go brown around the edges. It has never flowered.

Mum's soil is very sandy. There was only some multi-purpose compost around so I put that in the bottom and watered it every day for about a week when I left to go home. I don't think it has had much attention since. Mum is nearly 87 and can't remember a lot of things these days, but she thinks she may have given it a bit of water at some point in the last few weeks. I went to stay with her two weeks ago and after a day or two noticed that the leaves had gone soft and flopped. I thought it was thirsty so gave it some water. Unfortunately it went downhill after that quite quickly. The leaves went brown around the edges and some went brown all together. There was a bit of dieback on the few spindly branches. I am afraid I cut off all the leaves and all of the dieback so there is only a 3 foot stalk left. Will it die? Unfortunately as it is in Lincolnshire and I live in Wales I can't take any photos.

 

If anyone could help me with the problem with the pear trees I would be very grateful indeed.

 

It is not Fireblight. With fireblight the tree looks as if it`s been burnt.:gnthb: I still think it`s a watering problem. Take a clay soil, add water retentive manure and compost plus half a bucket of water per day and you have overwatering. As for the stem ends dying, I would say that is dieback, very common in fruit trees, Cut the branch back into clean wood, that`s about two inches beyond the dieback.:gnthb:

 

Hi glosspop,

It looks like a Potassium mineral deficiency to me, and as daitheplant said in his above post; overwatering could have compounded the situation. A little less watering and some potassium rich feed should sort the problem out, although if you've simply reduced the tree to nothing but a stick then maybe you'd be better off ripping it out and starting again.