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Fruit & Orchards

What's happening to my peaches?

13 years ago

We bought our house last year and it has a peach tree in the yard. I've never grown peaches before, but I've been reading about growing fruit.

The peach tree set a lot of fruit in the spring and I've thinned them once so far (will probably thin again next month). I've sprayed the tree twice--once when the petals fell and once last week. Last week everything was fine. Today, I went out to check on the tree and found that something is eating my fruit. Can anyone help identify what's wrong with my peaches? (Links to larger versions of the photos are at the bottom of the message.)

I don't see any insects except a couple of ants on the tree. Could it be animal damage? Some sort of disease?

Photos:

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Larger versions of each photo:

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photo 3

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Comments (5)

Scott F Smith
13 years ago
Some kind of bug is feeding on the immature fruit. I have never seen scars exactly like that, but it is similar to the stink bug damage I get. Stink bugs are walkers so the way you can tell if it is them is the damage will usually be concentrated on the lower part of the tree.

Scott
jean001
13 years ago
oops. need to sign in for larger images.

But not stink bugs. Likely someone from your region will pop in with correct info.
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If the tree holds the fruit, go ahead and eat it. Nothing wrong with that. Copper is copper...its all organic...comes in different forms but its mostly just the concentration of copper that you are worried about. You may have to spray several times. Some of that stuff is expensive. I sprayed early this spring right before the buds broke and I still lost almost every leaf on one of my trees. I think what I was using just wasn't strong enough. Some peaches are more resistant...two of mine have hardly any curl. If you can keep the tree completely dry until the leaves unfold you won't have any (my container peaches are almost curl free having spent many spring rains in the garage/they weren't sprayed at all). I guess this is a real bad year. MSU (Michigan State University) is seeing a lot of curl in orchards.
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I see that is rated for zone 5. If you ever want peaches either rip that one out/chainsaw it or graft a hardy variety on to it. Which would include: Reliance, Contender, Madison...among some others. Check out some of the nursery websites and then do some research. A lot of us ATTEMPT to grow these fruits up here in the COLD NORTH, and a lot of failure is to be expected.
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Yup, tree rat. Or could even be a rat rat. They'll take fruit, too. Traps next year, and lots of them. The plastic snap re-usable kind that look like giant clothespins are the best, IMHO, for rats and chipmunks. For squirrels, a good live trap. Your hardware or big box will have them.
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They were shredding mine so badly in the early spring that I thought I would never have plants this summer. I went to the pet store and bought the spray that you spray onto furniture to keep dogs from chewing it. There are several different brands, I used the one called "Bitter Apple". It works very well, but you have to reapply it after rain. It did not hurt my plants. I put it on bananas, alocasias, anything they chewed or I thought they were going to chew, LOL. It also worked against rabbits.
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minilaura
Original Author
13 years ago
Someone I know has suggested peach blight. Is that possible?

Here's a larger version of one of the photos since the links don't work:
{{gwi:96020}}
Scott F Smith
13 years ago
Gee, thats odd. In your larger picture it looks more like a disease, growing out in a circular pattern from initial infection spots. It doesn't look like any disease I know of. Most peach diseases infect the leaves as well as the fruits, but your leaves look perfectly clean. Very puzzling. About all I can say is compare in a few days and if the spots are growing it is definitely a disease. If the spots are not growing but new spots are showing up, that points to a bug. Overall I would guess it is a disease. Different weather conditions can cause diseases to grow in very different ways, and it could for example be brown rot growth in some unusual weather.

Scott
hoseman
13 years ago
Stinkbugs or tarnished plant bug, maybe tufted apple bud moth larva injury, but do not believe it is a disease.

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