Alan Buckingham, author of Allotment Month By Month, advises in his book that gardeners should inspect their apple and pear trees for signs of canker and remove any infected wood immediately.

Fire blight infects ornamental fruit trees such as this callery pear, a popular landscape tree. Symptoms include cankers on branches, wilted shoots and blacked leaves, which give trees a “scorched” ...

Twigs die back. Cankers can spread on their branches and trunks. At least one of the many sycamores along South Temple is showing signs of “witch’s broom,” where dense clusters of twigs grow ...

Alan Buckingham, author of Allotment Month By Month, suggests in his book's January section gardeners should check apple and pear trees for signs of canker and remove any infected wood if found.