Dolgo Crab Decline Question

[bigbendmarine]

Have two rows of dolgos planted on my place (8 on each side of a road leading to my pond), and about a week ago I noticed that the leaves on one were losing their dark green color / looked a lighter sickly green... crazy busy with about 1,000 things going on so finally got a chance to go look at it today. This is what I found. No other trees surrounding it yet seem to show any of the same symptoms.

Fireblight? Something else??? For whatever it's worth, weather wise down our way in North Florida our weather's been a bit crazy this year... warm early spring in Feb, then cold (relatively speaking) March, really hot and dry in April (upper 80s and low 90s) leading to near drought conditions, only to be followed by near flooding last few weeks of May. Not newly planted trees... planted two seasons ago as small saplings and all looked really healthy last year leading into this year (despite being grown in tubes / something I wish I hadn't done in hindsight but haven't yet had time to changeover to cages).

 

[Prof.Kent]

I don't see fire blight on my place very often, but this looks like it fire blight. You're supposed to cut it off a few inches below the infected parts, remove from the area and burn it.
FB can occur when temperatures get 65F or higher and humid. Infection comes through blossoms and wounds in bark.
I'm fortunate enough to have only minor attacks (so far) and con control the FB by snipping it off early.
John Trout has a lot of experience with fighting fire blight. See his YouTube channel here:

 

[chickenlittle]

Doesn't look like fireblight.

 

[Turkey Creek]

I have to agree that I would lean towards that not being fireblight. Looks more like environmental stress and from your weather description I would say that qualifies! Is it only on the tops of the trees? Did it affect all leaves at one time?

 

[bigbendmarine]

As best I can tell the entire tree declined at the same time... leaves from top to bottom look about identical, and again the first visible sign was a general lightening color of the leaves along with drooping, followed by the change of color on almost all of the leaves in a relatively short amount of time.

If not fireblight, and instead enviro stress, anything I can / should do? Would cutting to trunk be advised, even if it means having to re-graft dolgo to rootstock next year assuming some sprouts grow from trunk?

 

[chickenlittle]

Anything bothering the roots? Voles or gophers or something?

I would not try to prune it now. Keep it watered if you hit another dry spell.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Any sign of borers ??

 

[Native Hunter]

I agree that it doesn't look like FB.

It looks just like the maples in my fence row that I sprayed with Crossbow the other day.

 

[Turkey Creek]

If the soil is too wet that can be a problem as well. You mentioned flooding.