Steph: Yellowing leaves with brown spots sounds like the onset of bacterial disease, which can be encouraged by cool, wet conditions, both in the soil and the air. I have lost a lot of peach trees to this disease, and I live very close to you and share the same climate conditions, but have managed to pretty well eliminate it with dormant sprays of copper. I also keep my trees pruned to an open vase style, which allows them to dry out quickly and improves air circulation. Newly-planted fruit trees should never be allowed to fruit, and "loaded" trees should be promptly unloaded by thinning as soon as the overburden becomes evident. This applies to any other fruit trees you may have as well as peaches. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Here in SoCal, my fruit trees survive and maintain even with persistant canker (ie. brown, jellylike oozing). My peach tree did well, the nectarine has been fine for many years. The cherry didn't make it long, but was probably do to insufficient chilling hours (canker seems to be very common here in SoCal). The trick is to do your copper-sulfur spraying in winter and then cutting out the bad areas in the bark (and disinfect the area and tool). The trees will never be completely free of canker, though, regardless of the effort to "cure" it. Also, look on the "dead" limbs for holes, ie. borer insect damage. If so, ask your nurseryman what to use (I used horticultural oil, but I don't remember the name). If one limb is healthy, you may be able to save the tree. There's still time this season to give the tree a boost of fertilizer, nitrogen (but don't overwater... and don't underwater a "sick" tree). Good luck!!! Pics will help for others to give further advice.

cough: 1. If you have already planted 8 peach trees, and are still looking for more, I invite you to consider the following sincerely offered suggestions: a) Make sure you know what is involved in growing 1-3 peach trees before you plant a lot more. Growing peaches is difficult even for experienced backyard growers. Peaches can have a lot of insect and disease problems, and usually do. Do not believe anyone who tells you they are easy to grow "organically". b) Before planting a lot of any one thing, have a plan for the use of the fruit in the event you actually get some production. 2. I have a pretty good-size backyard orchard here, and currently have 5 peach trees. I could actually get by with three good varieties, one early, one late-midseason, and one good peento (flat) type. This year, 3 of the trees produced heavily, a mature Golden Jubilee, a young Contender, and a young (white) Sugar Giant. The Contender ripened extremely early -- July 7, and, since early peaches are not much good for freezing, we had to hustle to eat or give away the more than 50 peaches this tree produced. They are all ripe within a period of a week. The average person, weighing less than 300 lbs., can eat a maximum of 2 large peaches per day. Next to ripen was Sugar Giant, a sweet peach without a lot of flavor. It suffered badly from bacterial spot, and at least half the peaches were thrown out. This peach, a modern variety from the Zaiger program in California, was a mistake to plant here. 3. Because of the 4-day Easter freeze, the Flat Wonderful peento type had only a dozen peaches, but they were truly fine eating, and early to ripen. They have a firm flesh, but wonderful flavor. Because of their odd shape, peento peaches are difficult to cut up and prepare for freezing. The little pit resides right in the middle of the doughnut, and the peach does not split apart like a large freestone. If this tree produces a full crop next season, we will again be shoveling them in shortly after Contender is gone. I would be cautious about planting any of the white peento varieties, which are likely to be far more sensitive to brown rot and other maladies. 4. Golden Jubilee is a late-midseason peach, and this mature (12 year) tree was an abundant producer this year, with about 125 peaches, of which at least 3 dozen weighed one pound or more. My spouse froze 16 quarts of these peaches, which are firm, easy to prepare, and fine for freezing. But we still have a dozen of these peaches in the refrigerator. They ripened the last few days of August and early September. 5. The bottom line here is: I really don't know what we would do with any more peaches. Once you have figured out how to grow them, and protect them against all their enemies, they can be very abundant. After two early sprays with Imidan against plum curculio, and careful thinning, all my peaches were bagged in try-on "footies", which protected them against insects (mainly oriental fruit moth) for the balance of the season. And very effectively - without any further spraying. Footie installation is, however, tedious, and calls for some acquired skill. 6. If you are going to grow peaches, you should become familiar as soon as possible with diseases such as bacterial spot (on the fruit), bacterial canker (on the limbs), and insects like the plum curculio (early) and oriental fruit moth (all season long). After that, you can get some advice here on how to deal with those problems. You should select the varieties to plant very carefully, based on such factors as their ripening times, and resistance to diseases like bacterial spot. Planting what Home Depot happens to have on hand is not the best way to choose your peach varieties. 7. Without considerable effort to learn the essentials of peach growing, you can plant 100 trees and still not get any decent, usable peaches. On the other hand, two or three carefully chosen peach varieties, with the right care, can produce enough peaches to make your family tired of eating peaches, and the neighbors too. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

From what I can tell, the type of tree seems to help more than anything else. Last year I had a Florda Belle that had a similar problem: I tried spraying with a dilute copper solution. It did not help - instead it caused the tree to defoliate completely. After much debating, I decided to replace the tree with a new variety. I went to a local nursery (Plant-o-gram) and talked to the owner about which type of peach he has the least problems with. He recommended a Tropic Sweet. It has been fantastic. I planted it last fall (and dug up the ailing Florda Belle & put it in a pot). Here is the Tropic Sweet around May: It is quite a bit bigger now and still very healthy. By comparison, the Florda Belle put out only 4 leaves this year and I chucked it around May. Sorry that isn't much help to you with your current tree, but thought I'd share my experience. Also, it's probably my thread you were remembering (link below). Good luck! Let us know if you find a solution that helps your tree. Here is a link that might be useful: Diseased Florda Belle