My neighbor's entire 10 ft pear tree is infested with blister mites. My research with the WSU extension service and other online sources recommend an oil and lime-sulfur spray after harvest (when the adults migrate to the terminal and fruit buds) and again in the spring. A guy in Portland posted in another forum that he physically strips all pear leaves the first week of Sept and says it stops a recurrence of blister mites. The important questions for this time of year (May/June) are: (1) How do we stop the blister mites from spreading to an apple tree only 20 ft away? and (2) Is their anything we can do in the growing season to save the pears?

Hope some of you with blister mite stories (and solutions!) can zero in on these two questions.
Thanks everyone.

I typed a long post and waited to long to submit it so it got biffed.

I don't think apples are susceptible to pear blister mites. My sister's pear tree had them and never saw it on her several apples.

I pruned most/all off when I topworked the tree and they haven't been a problem since I did that a few years ago (don't recall if there are any or just much less). Even when she had them it didn't seem to affect the fruit much, it was mostly the leaves.

Picking the leaves in Sept sounds like a good idea if the tree isn't too big.