Hi atramel,
Peaches as a group are subject to Peach Leaf Curl.There are some resistant varieties,but it can happen to them too.It may be a little late to spray,usually it's done once in Fall and then one or two times mid to late Winter.Maybe now it could be done,but once the leaves start coming out,it's probably too late.
Some type of Copper is used a lot,Monterey Liqui-Cop is one that may work and it has other uses as a fungicide.I use Chlorothalonil,that's in Bonide's Fung-onil.
From the photo,some of those branches look to have fairly tight crotch angles.They should be more horizontal to 45-60 degrees.Three to four should be picked,staggered several inches apart and pointing out at different directions from each other along the trunk.They will form the scaffold.
Is it possible to get a fuller picture of the tree? Thanks,Brady

Atramel,

Brady is correct, three year peach trees would need to be sprayed for leaf curl in a rainy warm place like VA, unless you have one of the few resistant cultivars.

I only have to spray once for leaf curl here. Either in the fall at leaf drop, or in the early spring before bud swell.

Neem oil won't do much against the major pests in VA. There used to be a regular poster from VA on this forum with extensive fruit growing experience. Handle was Jellyman, if you want to search some of his posts. From what I could tell, he had the same pests and similar pest pressures I have here. You will need a stronger substance than neem oil to protect your peaches, unless you keep a heavy coat of Surround on your fruit.

Unfortunately, a local arborist is not the best resource for fruit trees. Very few are fruit tree specialists. They are quite resourceful for shade and ornamental trees, but fruit growing is a completely different discipline. I worked on an arborist crew at one time, and am friends with a licensed arborist. I would trust them to take down a large tree without crashing it into my house, but would not trust them to prune my fruit trees. This would be confirmed in your own case, as the portion of your 3 yr old peach shown is poorly pruned. Additionally there is no advantage in purchasing a 3 yr. old peach tree unless a very extensive root system is excavated with the tree.

It's fairly unusual for nurseries to sell three year trees anyway, and I'm afraid yours may not be (at least the one pictured). I've been pruning some 3rd year trees lately, and mine are 2.5" in diameter at the base.

You are on the right track doing some reading and posting questions on this forum. There are several qualified individuals who can answer many of your questions. Fruitnut, Harvestman, Scott Smith, and many others.

Thank you both very much! I'll definitely keep reading. Here is a better photo of one of the trees that was taken right after they were planted, in late fall last year, just before our first really hard frost. The one I posted previously definitely doesn't do either of them justice - was trying to capture the little buds (which were surprisingly difficult to get with a camera phone) - although that may not change anything. I'll have to continue reading as you've both suggested. Haven't done any kind of pruning because I didn't want to screw it up - although most of the video tutorials I've seen don't look too complicated. I guess where I struggle is that it sounds like they only develop fruit on the new growth? I can't wrap my head around how you can prune without removing the new growth (unless the idea is that you prune some percentage thereof regardless). I'm sure I will figure it out sooner or later. Sometimes I can be a little slow.

This post was edited by atramel on Sat, Mar 15, 14 at 3:52

Also, here is the other one. It looked like I could only post one pic at a time.

You don't identify your climate zone.

We lost a nice peach tree in our zone due to peach tree borers, which can kill the trees. The tree was on our property when we moved here, and I was unaware of the possibility. I have read claims that mothballs at the base of the tree can prevent this, but a better source might be your local agricultural extension service, or a website for a college department of agriculture in your general area.

Fruit trees can be attacked by all sorts of things, depending in part on the area you live in.

Another consideration is the efect that any sprays you use might have on pollinators, particularly honeybees, in view of the colony collapse disorder beekeepers are struggling with .

Thanks eibren. The zone is either 7a or 7b, not sure. I am in western Loudoun county, basically right along the West Virginia line. I think I could probably throw a rock into West Virginia from my backyard. We're at a fairly high elevation, and it does get much colder here than it does it other parts of VA, and certainly colder than the DC metro area. I definitely don't want to apply anything that would jeopardize the bee populations. My father in-law has a couple hives in Kentucky and we've heard our share of stories about how difficult they've been to keep alive. We have ALL KINDS of bugs and animals out here, many of which I had never seen in person until moving this far out in the country. My grandparents had a large farm out in west Texas, so I've seen my share of critters, but the ecosystem is radically different here in VA. On the other hand, it's nice to have snakes that aren't poisonous, and I don't miss shaking out my shoes every day to make sure there are no scorpions in them.

For someone outside your area to assume that you will likely need to spray for peach leaf curl is not helpful, IMO. It is too bad that Scott has pulled back on participation to this forum lately, as he is close to you and could give you much more useful guidance.

I'm in southern NY which has its share of PLC but I rarely have to spray for it- I manage around 100 orchards around here and I wait until I know it's a problem before I add chlorathalinal to the schedule, which you'd probably need to put down now- like this weekend- I've got 2 or 3 weeks up here. One spray in early spring is all you need if you are willing to go synthetic which you will probably have to do anyway to get a rot free peach crop there.

Borers are another issue entirely, and can quickly be fatal to peach trees (trees will generally survive a bout with PLC). A thick coat of white latex paint applied to the first foot of trunk should be helpful- pull away as much dirt as possible at base and rub off dirt with rag before application. If you see frass and resin oozing out of the base of a peach tree you need to find the grub with a sharp knife, cutting away only damaged bark to find its tunnel A wire can also be used. Do not cut into healthy bark! Check for them on a regular basis.

If you are going to use a synthetic insecticide, you can spray the base of the peach tree at the same time you spray your canopy to reduce the risk of borers.

There is a recent post here requesting spray advice in CT which I answered with a long explanation of the spray options and requirements in my neck of the woods. You might want to read that as a starting point for pest control.

By the way, you need to consider how you are going to train those trees- they need some pruning.

Thanks harvestman. Is this an appropriate time of year to be doing pruning?

If so, any suggestions on where to start, having seen the trees?

I want to do the right thing, just a little nervous about taking the leap.

It looks like the first tree was pruned by the nursery to be an open center tree starting quite low- one of the 3 branches is excessively large. The other tree looks more like an apricot than a peach to me- maybe that's just the photo, but if it looks as different in real life (with the many bumps and a more golden colored bark) and if those are flowers forming already, way ahead of other tree, than my hunch is probably correct.

Training method is complicated in a home orchard by the question of wildlife. If you live where deer, squirrels and coons wander the property, you may be best served training to a central leader until you have at least 4' of straight trunk from the ground where you can place your first scaffolds. This way you can have your crop above the deer browse line and you can place a baffle on the trunk to stop critters from climbing. Squirrels can jump about 4' to reach lowest branches when discouraged by a baffle.

If you don't know what varieties you have, you are at a great disadvantage to begin with. There is no point in have two trees of the same variety in a small home orchard. Also there is great difference in quality depending on variety.

"For someone outside your area to assume that you will likely need to spray for peach leaf curl is not helpful, IMO."

Hman,

I tempered my comment indicating my pest pressure was similar to Don Yellman (Jellyman). He regularly had to spray for leaf curl, PC and OFM.

I'm unclear why you feel you can extrapolate your spray advice to VA (with one synthetic spray in early spring is all that's needed) yet pronounce my advice as unhelpful.

Growing fruit trees is really hard. If you really want to learn how it's going to take some time. Organic doesn't mean safe btw. Some times synthetics are safer and have less impact on the environment. You can try to grow a spray free tree, but have to accept it may not work.
The terms around growing trees is confusing. You mentioned one "new wood" Which means wood that is one year old, last years wood! A very confusing term. Anyway yes you have to prune some of the fruit bearing wood off. You have to remove most of the fruit on the wood that is left. If you do not the tree could literally break apart.
First you have to decide if you want a tall tree or if you prefer to keep it small.

Scott, Olpea, Harvestman, I have been here and year and see these questions come up time and again. In the container forum they developed a thread about soil and the best options for containers. We need something like that. A thread we can point new users to . In the container forum is the thread Container Soils - Water Movement and Retention XVIII 18 referring to how many times they have to repost the template as the maximum messages forced a new thread. It is very useful, We definitely need something like that here. A how to grow peach trees thread that we can refer to for newbie's. A template, as the options and methods are long and complex. I know we are about to enter our busy season, but it may be worth noting what you do.
We could do it for every fruiting tree and bush. We can work on drafts right here, and get all input from the experts. Once done start a new thread with the template. Growing Peach Trees I
Maybe this next winter when we have more time we can do it. I'm going to do one for raspberries. Present it, ask for input and changes. It may take some time to develop, but once done every time somebody asks a raspberry question, we can point them to the thread. Once thread is full, start it over. Even if you guys don't want to, fine, but I think I will for raspberries, and ask all us raspberry people to correct and add to my rough draft until we get it where all the raspberry experts agree.
Yikes this is a very ambiguous project, but it needs to be done. Raspberries will be a piece of cake compared to peach trees!

Olpea, I apologize for my tone, I wasn't intending to belittle your advice (I didn't notice you were the author, but that's no excuse). I don't believe in spraying "just in case" and think it's a better idea to see what's going to happen and find the actual pest pressure in a specific location. Of all the orchards I manage only one site is going to require application to control peach leaf curl.

I am under the impression that chlorathalinal requires a single application for treatment of PLC as that is all that Cornell recommends and by my standards they are likely to overkill if anything, but I don't know if it is a different issue down south. You are correct to point out that I'm presumptuous to assume it will work down there as a single application (and hypocritical) just because it works here. Should have caught that before I suggested it was a certainty. I blame my editor.

In West Virginia a single application of even copper seems to usually be adequate for PLC control according to this guideline. Couldn't find one specifically for Virginia.

Here is another guide for North Carolina that states a single spray is adequate. http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/ag30.html#diseases

Here is a link that might be useful: west virginia production guide

I get the idea from other posts that harvestman likes to let a plant use it's own defenses first,before assuming that a treatment is needed.Please correct me if I'm assuming here.That approach is fine by me for a number of different reasons.
Another thing that came to mind,(that I'm not sure of yet) is to possibly find out which areas do experience PLC.I'll start a new thread and ask that question. Brady

This post was edited by Bradybb on Sat, Mar 15, 14 at 16:44

Brady, I like to know what's needed on any given site. Some pests are virtually universal here in southeast NY and some are sporadic and only become a problem at some sites. Stink bugs, Oriental fruit moths, apple fly maggot, black knot, tarnished plant bug, and fire blight, are examples of pests that are very site specific here and fluctuate even at problem sties from year to year- I would never spray for them proactively until I know it is historically a problem- or better, when I see an appearance.

Plum curculio and most years, scab and cedar apple rust are pests that I'm proactive on because the odds are so high of their presence.

I've also found that I can usually control even these more prevalent pests with fewer sprays than Cornell might lead me to believe, but the only way to find this out is to scout and hold back until you know you have a problem even if it is sometimes a bit more risky.

"Olpea, I apologize for my tone, I wasn't intending to belittle your advice"

No problem. Peach leaf curl although frequent, isn't always annual occurrence here. I monitor it on unmanaged trees of neighbors. I do spray for it annually (one dormant spray) as a preventive because here, the effects can be pretty devastating with near complete defoliation. I don't want to lose a crop unnecessarily.

Since fungal infections abound just about everywhere one should use preventatives. Not doing so is like smoking and once you get cancer, you quit. Some of these fungal infections once in, are not ever leaving and it's a life long struggle to save the tree. PLC is not one of them. Even infected trees bear fruit fine, but others are more concerning. But even PLC weakens and stresses the tree's immune system making it more vulnerable to other infections. Chances of us getting small pox is slim to none, yet everyone my age bears a scare that is from a preventative. Cow pox to be specific. Prevention is a good idea. when I was at the vet's I saw that one in 70 thousand dogs becomes infected with heartworm. So I decided not to vaccinate my dog, chances were so slim. Well Max got heartworm and it cost me about a thousand bucks for the cure. at 13 he died of a heart attack, no doubt from his compromised heart muscle from the parasitical infection. I have to live with that now. These are my trees, I don't care if chances are slim to none, I'm using preventative. And all my dogs get heartworm meds now too even though by the odds I should be able to own 70 thousands dogs before any of mine get it again, I'm not taking any chances.

Drew, armchair theories may add color to this forum, but from a practical standpoint often seem like poor advice from my perspective. These are not theories in the scientific definition of the word and are not even backed by anecdote that you are sharing.

I think the validity of your hypothesis depends on the disease being capable of establishing in the wood itself and then spreading throughout the tree through the vascular system.

I really can't think of a single pest that once established on a site tends to become harder to control to the point where you want to keep trees protected throughout the growing season so they never suffer any infection from it.

With brown rot, you do want to avoid having the fungus grow into the small wood if you can help it by removing infected fruit promptly but brown rot is universal so you can't keep it from establishing in your orchard- just in the small wood.

Integrated pest management of plants involves using as little proactive spray as practical. Your fears of fighting pests by keeping compounds on the trees represents the old fashioned approach.

Your comparison of lung cancer and smoking seems pretty pointless and is irrelevant to plant care, in my opinion. Aren't you really just talking about your experience with canker on your cherry trees? You may eventually find out the problem there had more to do with environmental problems than a failure of early enough treatment. Cherries in a humid climate need full sun, or at least full eastern exposure, good drainage and everything else required for vigorous growth.

That isn't to say that there aren't sites where proactive protection of cherry trees from canker isn't necessary.

I'm just guessing here because you provided no examples to illustrate your theory that actually involves fruit trees.

"PLC is not one of them. Even infected trees bear fruit fine"

Drew,

Here PLC can defoliate most of the tree. This happens early enough in the season that there aren't enough leaves to carry much of a crop.

In the past there have been threads on the forum showing pictures of extensive defoliation with balls of fruit hanging from many naked shoots. It has generally been recommended to strip the fruit in those cases for the welfare of the tree.

I once had a tree, which had it so badly it infected the fruit. I didn't think it possible, but I showed the fruit to a fruit specialist from MU (Pat Byers). He told me it was PLC damage.

Below is a link showing some damaged PLC fruit.

I do agree with the IPM philosophy Hman points out, but I haven't figured out a way to adapt the approach to leaf curl. It's a fairly regular occurrence here and so easy to control with one spray that all the commercial guys I know do it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf Curl Management - Davis

Olpea, of course once it has shown to be a regular problem at a given site you need to apply sprays proactively and possibly in perpetuity. My suggestion here is that it is probably worth the risk to see its appearance before complicating your spray schedule with automatic application, just as you've done.

If I had always sprayed and treated pests considered highly likely in my area based on Cornell recommendations I would never have developed a relatively low-spray schedule and would think all the sprays are required to produce sound fruit.

Even the site where I must treat for PLC I did not want to have to do it. Most of the peaches on his site have been unaffected by the disease, but I offered the client the option, trying to steer him away from it but he wouldn't budge. I don't have to do any other spraying when trees are completely dormant anywhere.

However, the man had me install over 100 fruit trees from my nursery onto his property and has me care for them mostly as I see fit, so I'm not complaining.

I just base what I do on my experience. Prevention and treatment. My neighbor's tree has PLC every year. Every year the leaves all fall off, and every year they all grow back.The fruit falls off too. Every year I wish the tree would die, but yet every year still there. I don't really care about minimum spraying or whatever, I spray when I see fit. I won't let others cloud my judgment. My decision based on my experience. I won't 2nd guess experience, well my own that is.I myself give 2 treatments for PLC and will continue to do so.

That's fine Drew, but if you never try to control it with one spray you really have no basis to recommend it to others over a single spray. Most folks don't really enjoy putting out extra sprays, unless it has been shown to be helpful. My customers are generally grateful that I only perform services that I deem necessary and useful.

You don't let others cloud your judgement? that is amusing- I think you are the one clouding the waters here.

Just a note, if you're on the border of VA/WV, you're not 7b. You may be 7a, but most likely 6b.

Also, neem is pretty toxic. It's organic, but its extremely toxic to fish and amphibians (including the toads and salamanders that pretty much everyone has, and control bugs)

I'm not sure where to ask this question, so here it goes. We have had our Alberta peach tree for 8 years and just 3 or 4 years ago it started giving us peaches like crazy. We had a really bad, cold winter this year and I have been checking the peach tree and I see that it has some leaves starting come out but it is not like before. My question is, was this winter to hard on the peach tree and it is dying or because of the bad winter the tree is in shock so to speak? The limbs look like they are alive still but not many leaves are coming out. I think we are zone 5, I'm going by what the plant catalog's have us zoned in. Thanks Shannon