Yes, many of them turn yellow and then die off. How is your peach tree doing otherwise? Has it produced fruit yet?

cough: 1. If you have already planted 8 peach trees, and are still looking for more, I invite you to consider the following sincerely offered suggestions: a) Make sure you know what is involved in growing 1-3 peach trees before you plant a lot more. Growing peaches is difficult even for experienced backyard growers. Peaches can have a lot of insect and disease problems, and usually do. Do not believe anyone who tells you they are easy to grow "organically". b) Before planting a lot of any one thing, have a plan for the use of the fruit in the event you actually get some production. 2. I have a pretty good-size backyard orchard here, and currently have 5 peach trees. I could actually get by with three good varieties, one early, one late-midseason, and one good peento (flat) type. This year, 3 of the trees produced heavily, a mature Golden Jubilee, a young Contender, and a young (white) Sugar Giant. The Contender ripened extremely early -- July 7, and, since early peaches are not much good for freezing, we had to hustle to eat or give away the more than 50 peaches this tree produced. They are all ripe within a period of a week. The average person, weighing less than 300 lbs., can eat a maximum of 2 large peaches per day. Next to ripen was Sugar Giant, a sweet peach without a lot of flavor. It suffered badly from bacterial spot, and at least half the peaches were thrown out. This peach, a modern variety from the Zaiger program in California, was a mistake to plant here. 3. Because of the 4-day Easter freeze, the Flat Wonderful peento type had only a dozen peaches, but they were truly fine eating, and early to ripen. They have a firm flesh, but wonderful flavor. Because of their odd shape, peento peaches are difficult to cut up and prepare for freezing. The little pit resides right in the middle of the doughnut, and the peach does not split apart like a large freestone. If this tree produces a full crop next season, we will again be shoveling them in shortly after Contender is gone. I would be cautious about planting any of the white peento varieties, which are likely to be far more sensitive to brown rot and other maladies. 4. Golden Jubilee is a late-midseason peach, and this mature (12 year) tree was an abundant producer this year, with about 125 peaches, of which at least 3 dozen weighed one pound or more. My spouse froze 16 quarts of these peaches, which are firm, easy to prepare, and fine for freezing. But we still have a dozen of these peaches in the refrigerator. They ripened the last few days of August and early September. 5. The bottom line here is: I really don't know what we would do with any more peaches. Once you have figured out how to grow them, and protect them against all their enemies, they can be very abundant. After two early sprays with Imidan against plum curculio, and careful thinning, all my peaches were bagged in try-on "footies", which protected them against insects (mainly oriental fruit moth) for the balance of the season. And very effectively - without any further spraying. Footie installation is, however, tedious, and calls for some acquired skill. 6. If you are going to grow peaches, you should become familiar as soon as possible with diseases such as bacterial spot (on the fruit), bacterial canker (on the limbs), and insects like the plum curculio (early) and oriental fruit moth (all season long). After that, you can get some advice here on how to deal with those problems. You should select the varieties to plant very carefully, based on such factors as their ripening times, and resistance to diseases like bacterial spot. Planting what Home Depot happens to have on hand is not the best way to choose your peach varieties. 7. Without considerable effort to learn the essentials of peach growing, you can plant 100 trees and still not get any decent, usable peaches. On the other hand, two or three carefully chosen peach varieties, with the right care, can produce enough peaches to make your family tired of eating peaches, and the neighbors too. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Scott: I also thought I had an iron deficiency when I first saw these symptoms on two peach trees (this was over 15 years ago), and liberally applied some fairly expensive liquid chelated iron products out to the drip line. I could have saved the money, since it didn't make any difference at all. The problem was bacterial disease. When otherwise healthy trees begin to exhibit these symptoms over a one or two-year period, it is usually not a mineral deficiency. I also think that keeping stone fruit trees open to good air circulation in the center, and annual renewal pruning to grow healthy new wood may slow the development of diseases like this, but have no real scientific evidence to prove it. Sofaman: Peach trees with generalized bacterial disease will survive for a while, but continue to lose branches. Leaves will also fall prematurely. The dormant spraying I do with copper is intended as a preventive measure, since this disease cannot be successfully treated once it is underway. I spray my peaches with Kocide twice in the dormant season; once in late November or December, and again just before bud break. You can try it on an already infected tree, but I doubt it will slow or reverse the disease. The time to start dormant spraying was 10 years ago or more, and even then there is no assurance of success with a peach tree that old. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but it is my best judgment, since I have seen exactly the same thing happen on a fair number of trees over the years. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Probably Lesser peach tree borer. Spray the limbs with an insecticide and visit this page bellow and click on any image to enlarge. The enlarge pic can be clicked on to open an article on the subject. You will also have peach tree borer. This is an insect that girdles the tree at ground level. You need to treat for both, They attack all stone fruit trees. Here is a link that might be useful: https://www.google.com/search?q=lesser+peachtree+borer&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS563US563&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=6C91U5G7D8yUqAb78oDwBg&ved=0CEcQ7Ak&biw=1920&bih=971#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=J7ZjeIYx1xQU6M%253A%3BHzAreAdNQjBwNM%3Bhttp% This post was edited by poncirusguy on Thu, May 15, 14 at 17:41