Dear Lisa, I am far from the most experienced orchardist in this forum however, I have followed this forum and its informed growers for the past three years on a more than once daily basis. What I have learned basically is no spray no fruit. I imagine you can bag your fruit or trees till the fruit is ripe, but the insects that will attack your trees and fruit are truly out there! Don't give up though, plant them. A spray or two is great. Anything worthwhile has a maintenance schedule of some sort.

Lisa, you did not mention where you live. In arid climates there are not many pests and it is relatively easy to grow peaches, but if you are not in one of those choice spots (most of them are in California) indeed quite a few sprays are required. I probably do 6-7 sprays per year on my peaches. You can do with fewer sprays if you don't want to be organic.

Scott

The short answer is "Probably yes" - you should choose something else.....

I think you have to differentiate "High Maintenance" from whether or not it's "Organic"... Many people think "Organic" is what I like to call "Zero-scape"... meaning stuff the plant in the ground and then wander back around in 3-4 years and collect fruit....

Peaches (And all Prunus species in general) are VERY high maintenance in most of the USA... no matter whether you decide to go Organic or not...

Many Organic programs are very very high maintenance... For example - the Kaolin clay products like Surround you spray on fruit to keep the bugs out are totally organic - but you have to re-apply after every rain....

If you really want to not have to fool with Fruit Tree Maintenance beyond pruning and fertilizing... I suggest, you consider:
Brambles (Raspberries and Blackberries)
Figs
Blueberries
Jujubes (Great if you like apples)
Goumi

Then - if you are in the deep south, Muscadine grapes...

Now... There are some old varieties of Peaches that are not so massively intensively high maintenance... but we are talking moving from "Intensive, super high" down to just "High" ... Compare this to Blueberries, figs, goumi, and jujubes - where you fertilize and prune... and your biggest challenge is keeping the birds from eating them all...

Thanks

And if you have gray squirrels then have to be eliminated or blocked from peach trees.

Citrus is much easier to grow if you are in a zone for it.

Buy peaches at the store?? The horror!!
If you are really iffy, I think you should keep the best of the 3 varieties and give it a try, see if they produce or are covered with diseases/bugs. At worst you would be out $20-ish dollars and a year or two. At best you would know you can grow peaches and you can go back and plant 2 more delicious peach varieties (or 5)(or 20)(and then you'd be a member of the club!:) )

Carla in Sac

"Buy peaches at the store?? The horror!!"

Lisa,

That was my thought as well. Around here, peaches from a can taste better than store bought fresh peaches.

Scott hit the nail. It really depends on where you're growing. Folks in CA pretty much plant, water and harvest peaches (with maybe a leaf curl spray thrown in). As you move east of the Rockies, it gets harder.

If you're in a humid climate, it still doesn't have to be that expensive to take care of a few peach trees. A small pump up sprayer will suffice. Triazicide insecticide is 10 bucks/bottle. The only other sprays you would need would be something like Captan or Monetery Fungii fighter for brown rot control and some copper for leaf curl. All in all you could probably buy all your sprays for around 60 bucks and they would last several seasons.

You'd have your money back with your first bushel of peaches, and they'd be better than what you'd get in the stores.

Be aware, if you have lot's of squirrels, they will steal your peaches along with any other tree fruit.

I live in Southern CA and trust me, its not just plant, water and harvest. The first year I planted my peach tree I dealt with borers beetles moths caterpillars aphids ants...etc BUT with one or two sprays and a couple dustings in between the problem was gone and the one (yes one) peach that my tree produced was the best tasting most juiciest red/yellow freestone red baron I have ever eaten in my life!

Trust me. Im in zone 9b/10 and there are bugs a plenty in southern California. But it is not that difficult with a couple sprayings of pesticide and fungicide for the season and just keep a good eye on your tree. No fruit tree is maintenance free. Remember you reap what you sow. AND once you taste fruit from your own stock you will NEVER go back to the grocery store.

or you can do what i decided.. when the kids came along ...

just give up the foo foo plants that requirement IPM ... integrated pest management ...

its simply not worth it ... that.. and i dont have the attention span for the cycles of care requisite ... again.. i blame the kids ... lol ..

so i gave up apples.. and plums.. and peach.. and pear ...

actually .. i still have them.. and i still get a few ugly fruit off them [they taste just as good] ... they just arent 'store pretty' ... but i have 5 acres.. and room to spare ... were i in suburbia.. i wouldnt waste the space ...

ken

Most tree fruits are virtually impossible in humid eastern and midwestern climates without a LOT of spraying and maintenance, unfortunately.

"I live in Southern CA and trust me, its not just plant, water and harvest."

Blazeaglory,

I've never lived in CA, but have participated in fruit forums for many years. You don't know how many times I've heard admonitions from CA folks that there is no need to spray for pests. Sometimes it's been downright condemnation against those who spray.

In the conversations I've had, many times I sense a complete disconnect when it comes to pest pressures we face here east of the continental divide vs. pest pressures in arid climates like CA. They just can't understand why pests can't be taken care of with a few traps and a spray or two of neem oil.

I'm sure different parts of CA have different pest pressures, just as KS has a highly variable degrees of pest pressure (in the western part of the state, it's very dry and probably more similar to pest pressure you see in CA).

Overall CA has much lower pest pressure which explains the large thriving organic industry there, something that is absent in the lower Midwest and Southeast.

It does sound like you have some pests to deal with and I've heard of other CA residents battling individual problems like gofers and rats, but many many Californians I've heard from through the years leave the impression it's pretty much plant, water and harvest.

I have to back up Olpea on this one, when my mom bought a new house in Sonoma county there was a line of fruit trees that hadn't seen any care - no water, pruning, or spraying for years. The apples had some worms and the peach and plum weren't the prettiest trees I'd ever seen, but the fruit was plentiful and delicious. While the trees would have probably been healthier had more fruit and less bugs if more care had been given, they were still pretty darn good and I doubt the same could be said of neglected trees east of the Rockies.

Having said that we did eventually loose the peach tree to borers, and two years in a row we lost the whole plum crop because of windy rainstorms at pollination time. California doesn't have perfect conditions, but it is easier to grow some things here than in other places.

I think it's a matter of how much you want to eat home grown peaches, I personally can't stand store bought stone fruit. I've given up on getting good peaches, plums, and most of all apricots from the store, even the farmer's market is iffy. The best stone fruits are picked soft from the tree and eaten out of hand, to me planting and caring for a tree is totally worth it - but I don't have kids, so I have the luxury of devoting plenty of time to my fruit hobby.

I had a house in Kansas City, MO. I planted dwarf trees of all kinds. Had this mini orchard for about 13 years. The many apples had to be sprayed - no question. The many peaches did not - except for one year where beetles were on the fruit and I sprayed killed them. I never had to spray the peaches any other time. The plums - I sprayed after getting bugs one year - and still got buggy fruit. The single cherry never made it - something ate holes in the trunk. One year (and one year only) I had bugs (worms) in my grapes - I usually never sprayed those. I had an apricot but lawn company sprayed and killed it before it started bearing. Had a giant kieffer pear at a previous place - never had bugs on it - no spraying. I guess it depends on where you are and what bugs have found your place. Codling moth seems to be everywhere. I thought the peaches were really easy - but maybe that was just luck for those years. I will be buying dwarf trees soon and plan for 3 apples, 3 pears, 3 peaches, 2 apricots, zero plums, zero cherries. I am about 60 miles from the old KC house and am hoping the bugs are similar.

Well, I'll weigh in here, since I live in S. California born and raised, with a 10 year "hiatus" in N. Indiana, so I've seen both climates. Yes, I think overall, it is much easier to grow just about anything in California for a variety of reasons. Especially in the spraying of stone fruits. We have less pest pressure for SOME pests, and for stone fruits/pomes that is mostly true.

Here's what we deal with here in my neck of the woods (S. California San Diego county coastal area) - terrible terrible PLC. It's on everything, I would have to spray half my yard to try to keep it in check. We must spray at least 4 times to keep it in check and for us, that's often difficult because our rainy months coincide with our dormant months. So timing is everything. And often you just can't squeeze all the dormant spraying in (past 3 years this has been the case, although not so bad this winter.) We also deal with Fireblight, and in some areas where I live it can be so bad you have to give up growing pears, which traditionally are one of the easier deciduous fruit trees you can grow. I'm crossing my fingers my 17 pear trees will be able to survive any blight issues that might pop up. Have not seen any blight on other susceptible varieties in my yard or neighborhood, but you never know. Coddling moth in our apples and pears. Really an issue, and so sad to cut into a big, ripe juicy pear to see if full of larvae. Ugh. Stink bugs. So far, knock on wood, don't have them, but several of our Calif. forum members battle these. 2 spotted spider mite and red spider mite. ALWAYS an issue, especially in the summer when we get hot and dry and dusty. And, snails. Yes, snails. Horrible, horrible issues for citrus (they can strip a small tree overnight). Lastly, gophers, ground squirrels, voles, mice, fruit rats and rabbits. Gophers especially can kill a tree overnight. Any sudden death of a tree out here, and you can almost guarantee when you dig it up, you'll see no roots and a gopher tunnel or two. I fight a massive and ongoing battle to keep the rodent population down to a low roar here. And, don't tell my about attracting predators :-) I have a barn owl house up, we have a large number of predators I can see at any given moment as I look out my windows: Hawks, falcons, kites, weasels, coyotes (millions of them), bobcats, mountain lions, vultures (they will go after some live prey), barn owls, great horned owls (which eat barn owl babies, unfortunately), and probably more I just can't think of at the minute. They can't keep the rodent population in check enough, so I have to trap and poison so I can have at least 1/2 my crop of anything. And birds. My gosh. I love my birds, but I have to net everything.

So, that's what we deal with here in California. We maybe don't have to spray quite as much as folks in the mid-west, east coast or southern states, but we have our own sets of pest problems that make it somewhat difficult with certain fruits to just "plant, water, harvest". Some have less maintenance that others, but we still have to work at it here to get fruit, too :-)

Patty S.

You're right Carol. I live just south of KCMO on the KS side. Pest pressure is very spotty. Here, we are just rural enough everyone wants to have some fruit trees with the idea of plant, water, harvest. It probably keeps the pest innoculum artificially high. I'm able to observe unsprayed peach trees around here and the owners don't get any fruit. PC nails them early on and OFM later in the season.

Some people in the KC area seem to get peaches and even some apples with no spray. I think there is a chance of it with few/no fruit trees in the neighborhood. It would also be an added advantage to be surrounded by asphalt. I think lots of asphalt/concrete is naturally anti-pest.

Patty,

In a way, your post is like a breath of fresh air. Not that I wish pests on anyone (I have to deal w/ plenty on my own). It's just that through the years I've tired of people (mostly from the West Coast) lecturing on how you can grow fruit without sprays (or with minimal low impact sprays like Neem) if one just takes the right approach to companion planting, attracting beneficials, etc. I wish you could have answered these folks. Where were you when I needed you :-)

Seriously though, I doubt these folks would have espoused these methods if they didn't really work for them. I'm sure pest pressure differs from locale to locale in CA, as it does in KS.

It does for sure, olpea. Here where I live, where it's very temperate, we don't have a time where temps drop and kill things off, so we have bugs and organisms that flourish year-round. We have real issues with fungal infections like PLC, and on our ornamentals like Black Spot, Rust, Mildew. The closer you are to the beach, the worse it is. We probably have less spraying overall, but we still have to manage with sprays. We can get away with less toxic sprays and are able to get some reasonable affect with organic alternatives, but not always. Now, that all being said, my sister has 3 apple trees (Einshemer, Anna and something unidentified, probably Golden Delicious), a pear, and several citrus. She does nothing. She gets coddling moths and hand-picks off the snails. Oh, she does set traps for the gophers - that's a non-option here, you MUST trap them or you'll end up with your yard dropping about 2 feet down eventually, due to all the tunnels, lol! But other than that, she gets to eat most of her fruit. The worst is the coddling moths in the pears, which can ruin all the fruit. So, that's what happens when you just "plant, water, harvest"!

Patty S.

Here in the SF Bay Area, no pests at all on our Peach, Nectarine or Cherry. We do have to trap, monitor and spray for Coddling moth on our apple. Aphids are a minor pest. Gophers, squirrels and birds need to be dealt with, but traps and netting seem to take care of most of the pressure.

As far as diseases go, we have to spray for PLC and brown rot on the stone fruit and we get a little scab on the apples. And we very rarely get rain during the summer so don't have to worry about cracking and the like.

All in all, not too much problem.

I already have PC losses on my plums and peaches... Less than 1-week after petal fall... before shuck split - I go out and look and see those little @) cuts in the itty bitty fruit...

Then - there is something that ate the insides out of some of my peaches and the Azalea buds.... These are peaches under 1/2 the size of a dime - and they have a #2 pencil size hole in them and are completely hollowed out.... (I didn't loose too many peaches, though..) What did that?

Not to mention the little catterpillars that ate ALL the leaves off of the apricots and about 50% of the leaves off the cherries and peaches....

AND the borers that came out en-masse... Looks like I am going to loose my Hunza apricot - I am going to clip off some scion wood and pitch it in the fridge on the off chance that I can graft it.... I am about to give up on Apricots... and I love apricots... *Sigh*

So I was out spraying this past weekend... Over 1 month before I had to last year....

I can't wait till the Japanese Beetles show up and eat everything green and the birds and deer eat everything else...

Thanks

Then there are the squirrels. They have already hit my green peaches.

Yes I agree we in So Cal dont have to deal with the issues east of the Rockies but the problem with living in suburbia is that ALOT of my neighbors have many fruit trees and they never treat for pests or disease/fungus. Their fruit trees grow HUGE but dont make the best fruit and the wind carries all the problems into the yards of people who do try to maintain healthy trees. But yes I definitely agree that you guys further east have some crazy critters to deal with!

I have never had problems with gophers thank god but just today I watched a fellow in the neighborhood cram a hose down a hole in his yard while laughing hysterically. I did come across a nice big rat once but it was friendly and surprisingly clean. It must have been a pet rat. I have seen some big brown wire rats that come out at night to cross the wires. All in all I deal with a lot of beetles, caterpillars (Im amazed at how much they can eat) snails, borers and locusts (not the plagues but a few here and there)

I dust with seven once in a while. Spray with daconil a few times during spring or when needed and if it gets real bad I have a bottle of mix that I made to spray for bugs. I know I know its not organic but I use everything sparingly. So maybe it is just plant and water with a few speed bumps in between:)

Interesting to hear all challenges people face in their locale. It's been an interesting thread to me.

"I already have PC losses on my plums and peaches... Less than 1-week after petal fall... before shuck split - I go out and look and see those little @) cuts in the itty bitty fruit..."

John,

I'm curious about this, are the PC cutting through the shucks? Don't suppose you could post a pic, could you?