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.

Belle grows well in the north but your tree doesn't look like Belle. I have belle of Georgia and mine are round on botton and Belle peaches stay light yellow color while your peach already has red color. Your HD tree has probably been mislabeled. When does your peach ripen? Does it taste like a peach. What color flesh yellow or white. Thinning lets the peaches grow to a large size. Too many peaches break branches. Peaches on thin branches snap later. Too many fruit stresses the tree so it gets sick.

Peaches have a growth pause at that point in the growth, they are hardening the seed shell. The growth should pick up soon. There is no reason to treat curl now because it won't help. Spray lime-sulphur at leaf fall and before leaf-out. Based on how little curl I see in the picture it should not set your tree back too much this year. Scott

When I buy peaches from the grocery store I always buy them hard as a rock because I don't want them bruised. Then I place them in a brown paper sack in a single layer and roll the top to seal. In a few days they are perfectly ripe and bruise free! The trick here is not to forget they are in the bag! :o)