We get dogwood borers here, but they are not a serious issue, usually. Northern Spy tend to be long lived trees and I manage quite a few as well as growing them in my nursery. I've never seen borers using the burr knots as an entry point which are usually well above the graft unions (the entry points, that is). I do spray them with Lorsban when I've noticed them but by this time they may have already done their damage. Interestingly, of thousands of trees I manage, only 2 Bosc pears have been seriously injured by borers (talking about pomes, not peaches here). Both had the leaders snap off at the point of injury. Thanks for the input, Olpea. I'm not sure what to make of your neighbors experience, however. How could you not see the injuries if the neighbor had suffered borer damage? If you saw entry points specifically at the location of the burr knots, I'd have to re-evaluate my perception somewhat of the possible liability of burr knots. Why did he cut down the trees?

That doesn't look bad to me, but seeing the ooze would have helped. My peaches with bacterial canker tend to get a "poxed" look, nickel or quarter sized spots of ooze with the spots spread out over some area. Peaches of all sizes will ooze gum in the rain from too much sap pressure. Peach tree canker is usually due to the tree being too young and in unhappy circumstance (too little light in particular). So if you do have canker look at the light your tree is getting. Most of my cankered peach trees grew out of it, peach canker is nothing compared to cherry canker. Scott

Sometimes this leakage is caused by borers, sometimes it's due to wetness with the high sap pressures of early spring. Hose off the gel and look carefully around the base or where the sap was of the tree. If you do not see borer holes you are in the clear. Just leave the tree alone and it will heal itself up. It's also not a fungus or other disease. I have had this happen several times on young peach and nectarine trees. If it is borers get a insect spray for fruit trees that will protect it you can dig out the borer with a coat hanger if you have them. Your not giving your location so it hard to know your weather...but those trees look great you do need to trim them or thin some peaches in the future to get a bigger peach, It also helps the tree with less stress on the branches. I wish I didn't need to spray my trees and could have what you get...that' s great! Md

Dennis, The bigger problem in cooler climates for peaches is perennial canker. Perennial canker (aka Valsa canker, Cytospora canker, Leucostoma canker) is caused by a fungus. It is certainly much more serious in my locale. The problem w/ perennial canker is that, well, it's perennial. Black perennial cankers want to just keep growing/expanding year after year. I believe it's worse in cooler climates because trees are damaged more by winter kill and southwest injury, as well as the fact the fungus grows at cool temps when the trees are inactive and have no defenses. As Drew alluded, bacterial peach canker is more rare in the north. It can cause complete collapse of the tree. My understanding is that sweet cherries are more susc. to bacterial canker than peaches. I've heard of whole orchards of sweet cherries collapsing and dying from bacterial canker. As Ramble mentions, I've always heard copper will help against bacterial canker, but the link below from U.C. Davis says that bactericides have no reliable effect on bacterial canker. Bactericides are effective against bacterial spot. Because of that, I wonder if people have reasoned bactericides must also be effective against bacterial canker, although that may not be the case. There are a few sources which indicate copper may help against bacterial canker, but I'm inclined to think it probably doesn't help. From what I can tell, bacterial canker has a modus operandi on stone fruits somewhat like fireblight on pome fruits. Both are caused by bacteria. Both can become systemic. Both can cause sudden collapse of the trees. Both can cause cankers, but the cankers don't expand appreciatively year after year. Copper is effective against fireblight, but that's only because it prevents the innoculum from entering the flowers. Once fireblight enters the wood tissue, bactericides like copper have no effect. The bacterium is more or less insulated from the bactericide. It appears the same thing happens w/ bacterial canker in peach/cherry, except that the bacterium mostly enters the tree through pruning, some other damage to the bark, or leaf scars, vs through blooms. Because of that, there would seem to be less justification in applying a bactericide for control of the disease. Once the disease is systemic, the pathogen would again be insulated from the bactericide, as w/ the case in fireblight. Anyway, that's my understanding of the topic. Copper is also a fungicide, and so may have some effect against perennial (fungal) cankers, although perennial cankers don't become systemic, like bacterial canker. Perennial cankers just keep growing until they girdle the affected limb and kill it. Here is a link that might be useful: Bacterial Canker on Peach