The joys of owning a peach tree often come with quite a few challenges.
Heres how to keep your tree healthy and producing sweet fruit.
These are some of the problems you may face.
This frustrating disease stunts the tree’s growth and severely hampers fruit production.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to miss the signs of this fungal infection, which also attacksnectarines.
New growth in the spring first turns red, with the leaves thickening and puckering into curls.
As the disease progresses, the foliage turns yellow or gray and eventually falls from the tree.
Depending on where you live, this can be as early as November or as late as January.
You’ll need to repeat the treatment annually to prevent the reoccurrence of the infection.
Other Fungal Peach Tree Diseases
Peach tree fungus isn’t limited to leaf curl.
This troublesome insectits scientific name isSynanthedon exitiosais not only fond of peaches, however.
It infests other stone fruits, includingplums,cherries, apricots, andnectarines.
It’s not theadultpeach tree borer, which resembles a wasp, that causes all the trouble.
It’s the creamy-white larvae that wreak havoc in your orchard.
The hungry larvae feed inside thetreeuntil winter, which they spend underground on its roots.
Thepestsemerge as adults around a month later, starting the entire cycle over again.
This messy substance is a mixture of sap, sawdust, and frass (insect droppings).
You may also spot smaller holes in the lower tree trunk oozing clear sap.
Eventually, a heavily infested tree will wilt, lose leaves, or even die.
Predictably, fruit production is greatly reduced in thesepeach trees.
Spray heavily infested trees a third time in late August.
This forces the larvae to crawl through the insecticide as they chew into the bark.
