I'm curious what people around here's recommendations are for treating gummosis.

Tree: peach (don't recall the cultivar); been in the ground for 3 years. It's first spring, it fruited, although none made it to maturity. Last year, 6 or 7 made it to maturity, and this year, the tree is just blanketted with immature fruit (I'm *definitely* going to have to thin).

Situation: This winter was nasty for our peach and cherry. In addition to a horrible second half of winter, including some big, late ice storms, it warmed up -- enough to fool the peach and cherry into opening up their leaf buds. Then it froze again, and hard, for about 10 days. The peach has some pretty bad peach leaf curl on its first branches to open up, but 95% of its leaves are thankfully in good health. So, I'm not to concerned about the curl. My main concern is that we're getting some gummosis on the trunk, on an unprunable location (first branching of the trunk).

The tree has long had problems with the bark splitting (it's grown like a weed, despite the somewhat shaded location, and it's almost seemed like the bark couldn't keep up). While we generally tar up the splits, I imagine that such a split is how it got infected.

The area with the amber-colored "jelly" is roughly a circle about an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. I just noticed it this week.

Should I just wipe the "jelly" off and seal it up with tar, or is something else advisable? I've read varying things about gummosis, ranging from "it can't be treated, just wipe it off and seal it over" to "it can be fatal to the tree". Not sure what to think. Any input you could give would be welcome.

(Thankfully my nearby cherry has no disease symptoms. Unfortunately, it was so cold when it bloomed that nothing got pollinated. At least last year, we got a number of immature cherries...)