Hi Lisa, I actually recognized your name from a few years ago and found your old posts dealing with these trees: Peach tree issue and Peach Tree troubles I'm sorry you've been fighting this for so long and are still struggling with these trees. Scott and Hman have give you some sound advice. From your past threads, I think it's conclusive your trees have had issues with peach leaf curl. You mention last summer you still had to pull off "curled" leaves, so it sounds like you're still having issues with leaf curl. Because of this, I'm going to recommend a stronger product to you for leaf curl. It is available at garden centers and has the active ingredient "chlorothalonil". It is sold under names like Fungonil or Danconil. Like any leaf curl product, it must be applied after leaf drop in the fall, and/or before buds swell for it to work, which may mean its too late for you this spring. I applied my leaf curl sprays on a warm Feb. day this year. Oozing peaches are a result of some damage to the peach. Think of the ooze as the peach bleeding. It is the peach's way of protecting itself from injury. The blood/ooze bleeds out of the wound and hardens to form a sort of protective "scab". Anything can cause injury to the peach/fruitlet and cause bleeding. Most commonly it's a small worm. Sometimes the worm will crawl out of the peach, so that you don't see it when you open the peach. Some beetle type insects will also feed on the fruit. They have piercing mouthparts that suck the juice out of the peach. The site of feeding is an injury and can produce oozing. Any mechanical injury that breaks the skin of a peach (even a very minute break) can cause oozing. However, since it appears to affect most of the peaches in your case and you describe them as unattractive, it sounds a lot like insect damage which will require insecticide sprays to prevent this problem. I would also agree with Scott that you have some canker issues going on in the photos. The best antidote against canker is to promote healthy vigorous trees. Good drainage, a large weed free mulch ring around the trees, eliminating symptoms of leaf curl, and good pruning to promote new growth and open up the tree to sunlight are important. For peach trees grown outside in the soil, a good measure of the health of the tree is how much annual growth the tree puts on. Weak trees will have little new growth (red wood) and will have a significant amount of dead shoots. Healthy vigorous trees will easily have some shoots with 3' of growth or more (if left unpruned). Observe the growth from last season to assess the general vigor of your tree. Canker can continue to spread and eventually kill the tree, but good cultural practices will go a long way to halt or heal the damage. Of the ones mentioned, good drainage and a mulch ring are the most critical in my area. I'm not surprised you were able to harvest peaches effortlessly your first year. Insects, diseases and other pests sometimes take a few years to "show up" and when they do they don't want to leave the party.

Did your peaches split in addition to the clear goo coming out of them? If so, you might research something called pit split. 95% of our peaches dropped (after thinning). All of the peaches were split and had clear hard gel dripping out of them. When I cut them open, there was no sign of any infestations inside. There was a clear goo surrounding the pit though, and the pit was filled with goo (it hadn't hardened even though the peaches were 1 1/2" in diameter, not sure when they should harden) I searched the www for over a month for the combination of the clear goo and the split fruit, and the only thing I could come up with was "split pit" since there was no sign of any infestation. I can't guarantee that's really the problem, but it's the closest thing I've found. Please post if that sounds like what you experienced or if you discover it's something else that caused it.

Folks, the Balmer peach is significantly different than the McKay, with the McKay being much more like the Reliance and the Balmer being much more like real good peaches, but not as hardy as the former 2. We have had good luck with green tip grafting peaches onto seedlings, but only if the temperature is above 80F. Now a days we dig up the seedlings and put them in the greenhouse where it is always above 80 and have very good success. We have 10 or so Balmers in various stages of maturity (you need to renew peaches very 8 years or so in the north, which gives you 5 years of production), so we always have new ones starting. Eric

I was just told that traditional major pruning is done when the trees are dormant or to reduce the threat of canker do it when the tree is starting out of dormancy. I plan to take down the central leader myself next Spring, unless something changes my mind as I continue to follow more threads. :)