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Cornucopia - Australia

Help! My peach tree has holes in it!

17 years ago

Hi all,

A few years ago we moved to an old house which has a number of old fruit trees. One of them is a peach tree with the best biggest juiciest peaches I have ever seen! The peaches are so big that you need two hands to hold one! Unfortunately, it does not seem to be a healthy tree. its really weird shape and at some stage someone has stuck a pole into the ground near the trunk and the trunk has sort of grown around it! About half way up the trunk, where the canopy starts from, there is a BIG mass of sap. I'm sure this is not a good sign. However, my biggest worry is that holes of about 1cm wide are appearing in the trunk itself. Does any one out there know what is causing this and how I can treat it without sacrificing this year's fruit??

I really want to keep this tree for as long as possible as although it has "issues", it is a wonderful shade tree and provides us with the BEST fruit I've ever known! Please Help!

Cheryl

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Comments (4)

pepino
17 years ago
It sounds like it could be borers. Try poking some wire into the hole and see what is in there. You can try spraying with either organic or inorganic products, but a general poke will squish them.

Post this over at Ausgarden.com and I'm sure you'll get a few more responses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ausgarden
Raymondo
17 years ago
I agree with Pepino. Sounds like it could be borers. Poking is the most effective way of getting rid of them.
Next winter, take a few dozen cuttings and see if you can get them to strike. If you are successful, the new trees should produce the same delicious fruit and the old one can eventually be chooped down. It would be a shame to lose such a wonderful tree.
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Your problem IS that of a woodpecker. The smaller holes (arranged in a line) are those of sapsuckers, considered a type of woodpecker. Woodpeckers are a much more serious concern. Woodpeckers do this type of damage for one reason. They have detected and are searching for insects inside the wood. IF the holes were higher in the tree, OR if the trees had a great deal of dead wood in them already, I'd say that the peckers were drilling nest sites. That's not what I observe in your images. Woodpeckers also drum on trees for communication purposes, but they don't usually make holes like that when doing so. I'd investigate your trees for wood boring insects, carpenter ants, and the like. But I am afraid to say that there isn't much you can do. By the way, this is the Citrus Forum. You might be able to get some further information if you post in the Fruits and Orchards forum, or even the Pest Forum.
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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
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Several issues here: Peach Leaf Curl, too late to prevent it this year. Pick off those diseased leaves and destroy them. During a dormant season, spray the tree with copper. Copper is used as fungicide here. Peaches have many pests that attack fruit since they are tiny. The serious pests are Oriental Fruit moths, Plum Curculios and codling moths. They usually lay eggs on fruit, larvae hatched and tunnel inside the fruit to feed. Fruit drop prematurely. These moths breed in soil under the trees. You need to pick up all those dropped fruit and throw them out with trash. You need insecticide for it. Ripe peaches can also get brown rot. Another fungicide is needed. oozing at the base of the tree could be a peach borer issue. Clean out the jelly substance, look for holes at the base of the tree, sometimes a bit below a soil line and use a wire to poke the holes and kill the borers. Insecticide is needed.. You can look up university extension services near you and read up on these problems and how to treat them. There are more organic way to treat these issues. They often is more labor intensive with less effectiveness.
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Have you ever thin your peaches. I mean taking off 70% of all peachlets when they are young so the rest will size up and improve the fruit quality. anyway, I suspect that your peach tree is growing from a rootstock. The named variety was dead and the peach rootstock has taken over. That is why the peaches are small and poor in quality. this year the peaches have sized up could be because some of the flowered were killed by late frost or somehow young fruit drooped at a larher number than before leaving the remaining peaches to get up in size.
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pepino
17 years ago
I've never been able to reproduce peaches from cuttings but that doesn't mean it cannot be done. I would simply sow seeds in the ground, in an appropriate spot. Peaches mostly come true to type i.e. same as parent. By sowing directly it will send a tap root down and before long, hopefully, be producing the same fruit your old tree does.
guard
17 years ago
I had the same problem with mine until I had the termite problem in a shed close by the man who came to do the inspection and spray proved it was termites in the trunk he injected the spray in the holes and the tree is now thriving but he said it is common

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