lycheeluva:

Sorry to hear of your problems, very frustrating when we do our best and it still goes bad. And we only get one chance a yr to get it right. I've had several things this yr that I kinda felt the same way...I'll get it right next yr.

Read up about the leaf curl and it's control. Your first proposed spray sounds too early to me. And I believe spraying does no good after bud swell because that's when infection occurs. So I'd be inclined to add a spray just before bud swell begins. Your Febr spray should cover that but apparently didn't. Fortunately I don't have this problem...we've had less than an inch of rain in six months.

The Fruitnut

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. I had a similarly difficult problem getting rid of shothole on my peaches and plums, it took me four years and I almost ripped 'em all out at one point. What you did should work for a "normal" curl outbreak so you must have it particularly bad.

I would focus on the fall sprays more, that is when the curl is lodging in the new buds (and getting effectively hidden from future sprays). Spray first when half the leaves have fallen, again when all leaves down, and a third a few weeks later. My victory over shothole was finally achieved with fall sprays. Curl is very different, but I do think this is the best point to get diseases to keep them from overwintering. I would also use lime-sulphur for half of the sprays, copper for the other half: hit it from every angle you can.

My shothole is almost completely under control, but in the end I had to almost completely topwork the two plums which were the most susceptible: Elephant Heart and Howard Miracle. They would get it bad and then spread it to the other trees.

Scott

Thanks scott- i will try your suggested regimen.

interestingly, my nectarine trees, which usually caught the peach leaf curl from my peach tree have thus far stayed peach leaf curl free (they were sprayed with kocide at the same time as the peach tree), even though the peach tree's peach leaf curl seems as bad as usual despite the 2 kocide applications.

wonder if the nectarine trees will remain peach leaf curl free- seems unlikely given the vast amount of rain we've been getting in the second half of april.

Again, I could be wrong, but infection only occurs during bud swell. So one tree will not catch it from another this time of yr. Spraying does no good after bud swell for the same reason. You need to concentrate control efforts before infection, thus Scott's advice above.

The Fruitnut