Fire blight is an extremely dangerous bacterial disease that affects pome fruit and some closely-related wild and ornamental shrubs. This disease, which is caused by the bacterium, erwinia amylovora, is a serious threat to fruit trees. The pathogen increases and spreads extremely quickly in trees. An afflicted tree can die within a single growing season and means to fight the problem are scarce. 

Optimal infection conditions prevailed for almost three weeks during the pome fruit blossoming season in 2007. This led to the greatest damage to date caused  in commercial orchards and to meadow trees. More than 100 hectares of commercial orchards had to be eradicated and tens of thousands of meadow trees had to be felled. 

Integrated project

ProfiCrops would like to promote research into fire blight through the development of an integrated fire-blight project, bringing together researchers and stakeholders to enable knowledge to be passed on to users quickly and to secure consumer trust.

ProfiCrops' integrated fire-blight project encompasses the following projects: