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Fruit & Orchards

Peach Leaf Curl - time to start over?

14 years ago

About 9 years ago, I started a couple peach trees, side-by-side, from bareroot. Location is Willamette Valley of OR. The trees were purchased from the same vendor, both were marked as 'Oregon Curl Free' variety.

Since then, one tree gets leaf curl every year, the other does not. The disease-free tree has been yielding good fruit every year; the curled one has only yielded only once. The tree with curl gets bad curl early in the season, looses all of its leaves, then grows a second set. I've tried dormant sprays of oil, polysul, and fixed copper, but nothing seems to help. Is it time to cut this tree down and replace it?

Thanks,

Kelly

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Comments (3)

theaceofspades
14 years ago
Kelly, Polysul is lime sulfur and it is not very effective in your area. Oil should not be used at all with polysul. Toxic, maybe you are hammering the leaves along with the PLC.

OK, exactly what copper are you using. Some brands have low percent copper. Kocide 3000 has a high percent and is very fine so it works better. Search message board for 'kocide'. I use a pine resin based 'sticker' called Nu film-17.

A fungicide with chlorothalonil is very effective on PLC. Home depot sells Ortho brand called 'Garden Disease Control'.
olpea
14 years ago
I'll second Ace on the chlorothalonil. I've tried two applications of copper (fall and spring) and still got some leaf curl. When I use chlorothalonil, I get no leaf curl. I still use copper some for it's bactericidal properties. Chlorothalinil is available in many different homeowner formulations.

It sounds like your second tree was mislabeled. I wouldn't cut it down. I think chlorothalinil will get it into production.
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Nope, March is way too late for us to spray for PLC. Fruitnut is closer to the mark. We refer to it as the "holiday" spraying for PLC: Thanksgiving (you'll still have leaves on your trees no doubt), Christmas and Valentine's Day. But this year, it was too late to do a February 14th spray since we had a bit of a warm up and generally mild winter, so I only got two sprayings in this year. But, we've had a much, much drier winter this year than the last 3 years, so I think we'll be okay. I just had one of our local orchard specialists over today, and he was in the same boat as me. So, don't feel so badly :-) Patty S.
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no, very true, MrsG. I have not seen anything like the fervour (and superciliousness) of the no-spray advocates on this forum. I have been growing fruit at my allotment for the last 10 years and have had a harsh education - (gooseberries, long lost to American mildew) Blackcurrants (big Bud and reversion) Raspberries, numerous virus issues and mildew last year too) peaches (well!) cherries (the rampaging birds and the everpresent threat of various cankers, apples (codling moth) pears (midge) plums (leaf curling aphids, strawbs (botrytis and redcore). Had 'em all. So, this would-be organic gardener has had to give in to pragmatism and break out the copper (would have no potatoes or tomatoes, 8 years out of 10 otherwise).....I have not even started on the veggies!!! I guess my point is that it is not worth getting dogmatic and although I don't have to rely on food I grow to survive, I still want to see returns from my efforts. Sometimes though, it just is not possible to have what we want (and I am thinking that growing peaches in the UK is really not worth the bother of covering them with polythene, hand pollinating and continual sprays. Better get going with blueberries then (I will grow them next to the water butts with a seephose).
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kelly_from_or
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for the tip, guys. I'll definitely look for the chlorothalonil.

Ace: Yes, you'll often see that sulfur (elemental sulfur) should not be used anywhere near oil. But, you'll also see that oil plus lime/sulfur are highly recommended as a combo dormant spray. (http://www.lillymiller.com/dormants.html#3)

Here's the difference: Lime/sulfur is lime (calcium hydroxide) which has been reacted with elemental sulfur, to form a new compound, calcium polysulfide (Polysul is a brand name). Although *elemental* sulfur, a common fungicide, is toxic when used in conjunction with oils, the *sulfide* form of sulfur is safe to use with oil.

Thanks again,

Kelly

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