Carla, peach curl infection doesn't take place year 'round, it only takes place once when the buds swell. Basically, asexual spores get washed into the buds and there they infect all the future leaves to come out. That's why spraying is totally ineffective once you discover you have peach curl. So usually it's sufficient to spray your favorite fungicide (organic or synthetic) right at bud swell in the Spring. However, to be safe, it's best to spray once in the Fall right after leaf fall as well to reduce the spores going into Winter. In a warm year, peach curl may already be in the leaves but if conditions are warm and dry, then the peach curl fungus can't grow. It likes it best between 50 and 70F with plenty of rain.

An alternative option is to take a method from fig growers, who bundle up their trees to protect them from cold. The difference is that you can bundle up peaches to protect them from rain. I live in W. Washington and peach leaf curl is rampant. It takes using small pruned, or genetic dwarf, peach trees like Ponderosa (Or is it Bonanza?) or Honey Babe or Garden Gold (My varieties). I bundle up the branches with twine, each major branch being one bundle. Then I cover each bundle with a white plastic trash bag "sheath" and tie that in place as well. Keeping the rain off the buds, prevents peach leaf curl spores from getting into the buds and growing. I've sprayed the bundles before covering with copper spray but not sure if it's necessary. The bundling needs to be done in November. Then in February, I remove the trash bags and unbundle. I watch for when buds begin to swell, then remove the bags. This technique changed my peach loss from almost 100% to an overabundance of peaches. Only a few leaves were infected wtih leaf curl. I also did this with a Tri-lite peachplum, which is not genetic dwarf but is small. It worked for that as well. I plan to keep it pruned small so that the bundling is reasonably easy.

I love these "tips". How bout a little research backup before someone looses a crop on an experiment. Peach leaf curl is an unpredictable disease so anecdotal observation is not going to be a very useful method of evaluation. Lychee, did you get my e-mail? Chlorothalonil aka Bravo, Echo, Applause, and Concorde is not a restricted material in NY which is one of the most restrictive states, 2nd to only CA I reckon. Or at least it wasn't as of the publishing of the Cornell 2007 Tree Fruit Pest Managment guidelines. It's use as a brown-rot control for peaches is limited to early application which doesn't matter to me either because I agree with Don that there are much better materials for this. To my knowledge however it is still supposed to be the most affective treatment for peach leaf curl and for black-knot on plums which is what I use it for. I don't find peach leaf curl to usually be a very persistant problem if trees are pruned open enough and they recieve enough direct sunlight.

apple, I still say it isn't Fusarium. Fusarium does not cause fruit symptoms while certain of the foliage diseases do. Fusarium causes profound wilting of plants, which you haven't mentioned, while foliage diseases never do. The fact that your VF varieties did not do better, and the VF doesn't mean total resistance, it means increased tolerance, also tells me that it probably wasn't Fusarium or Verticillium. All NEW foliage infections are acquired by airborne means, while splashback infection can and does occur when the soil has been contaminated in previous years by spores/'bacteria, depending on which specific foliage diseases are at work. In addition, as I said above, Fusarium is only a problem where the gound doesn't freeze in the winter. And the lower branches are affected first when it's splashback reinfection. You haven't described any specific lesions on the leaves and it's those spots that can help diagnose what foliage infections you might be dealing with, thus give you some idea of how you might go about preventing those diseases. The four most common ones are: Early Blight ( A. solani) Septoria Leaf Spot Bacterial Speck Bacterial Spot Early Blight can appear either early or late in the season. While pictures are static and disease is progressive, you might want to take a look at some pictures of the above four to see if you can make any matches. it's important b'c there is excellent prevention and control for the first two, which are fungal, but not for the last two, which are bacterial. Hope that helps. Carolyn