Larry Pusey has used crab apples for his fireblight studies, as they can be manipulated to bloom year round in the greenhouse. Geraldine Warner For almost 20 years, Dr. Larry Pusey has been focused on researching a single problem—­fireblight. As Pusey, 60, retires this month as plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Wenatchee, Washington, fireblight remains the most economically devastating disease of apples and pears, but important progress has been made in terms of understanding how the bacterial disease develops and how it can be controlled without using the traditional antibiotic treatments. “It’s a tough problem,” Pusey […]