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Permalink Reply by Greg Scott on November 14, 2010 at 1:22am

Jim,

First is sanitation. Try to get rid of the fallen leaves. Put in the green barrel or trash and get rid of them. The fungi pathogens spread from the ground and debris back to the tree. You need to prune effectively and with sanitation. Bleach is your sterilizing agent. Get yourself some new bleach because bleach quickly becomes weaker with age. Remember that chlorine, the sterilizing agent in bleach (sodium hypochlorite), escapes quickly. Prune when all the leaves have dropped, usually in December here. Sterilize your pruning implements between EVERY cut with the bleach. Learn how to prune effectively, either by books, Master Gardeners, Common Ground in Palo Alto or whatever means. Bill Merrill is quite the expert on pruning. He was the former manager at Navlet's Nursery in Fremont. Pruning when it is cold lowers the chance of infection and injury contamination.

Once you have pruned, you have to spray, so I suggest pruning in December when you have leaf drop. Ideally you want to spray three times, no later than Valentine's Day. Saf-T-Cide sprays are the best. You have to spray copper for Peach Leaf Curl and also horticultural oil. Three sprayings each will generally do it.

I think if you follow this advice you will have peaches and nectarines, given all else.

The general problem is the susceptibility of the varieties we plant and the clay soils we have here in the East Bay. The lack of drainage we have in our clay soils harbors the fungi very well. If we planted our trees in mounds and we did extensive preparation of our soils we plant the trees in by doing a mix of composted manures, and thus adequate organic material, and we mixed in horticultural sand to this mix (Olympia #2 for instance), we probably would not have the problems we are have. This would be a huge amount of work, be difficult for ladder placement for pruning and harvest, and also difficult for irrigation. It is just that our idea of 'wells' around the tree does not work well for the trees being disease free. For existing trees we have to do the best we can. I should add that the timing of the rains during flowering (blossoming) also has a lot to do with the virulence of the fungal pathogens.
Not much we can do about that.

I cannot emphasize sanitation enough. Get all the leaves and twigs and even weeds out from under your trees at least to the drip line.
I personally do not mulch within the drip line. I think this only creates an environment for the disease organisms. No mulch at least gives the soil under the tree some chance of drying out somewhat and creates a less favorable environment for the fungal pathogens.

I have not sprayed and I have gotten no peaches. I have sprayed and I can tell you I am in peach heaven just after the Fourth of July with 'Elberta' peaches. Darn you Jim, 45 degrees here this morning and you have me thinking of summer and peaches already!

May this be of some help.

Greg

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Permalink Reply by Jim Crowther on November 14, 2010 at 9:44am

I have done all except the oil and also the bleaching of tools between each cut. I have done my best to create a bowl of the tree with my dormant pruning as per an online article from UC Davis as I recall.
There are a lot of very small twigs that have died due to the curl and even some rather shriveled and molding looking fruit I have been pulling off this week by hand and immediately disposing of in the green barrel. Not a part of that goes in my compost pile. I will wait and cut those infected looking little twigs out after dormancy sets in I will add oil and dipping my small bypass pruners each swipe.
MMMMMM Peaches and Nectarines just off the tree. There is no way ripe peach or nectarine will ever ship so there is just nothing in this world like sweet tree ripened fruit. I even like them off the tree when the approaching ripe with a crisp flesh. Delicious!
Thanks for the assistance!

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Permalink Reply by Greg Scott on November 14, 2010 at 10:29pm

The chemical you want is Monterey Liqui-Cop. This should be a good preventative for your Peach Leaf Curl when sprayed after pruning.
See www.montereylawngarden.com.

You must prune out all diseased and dead wood and use good sanitation when doing so.
See http://wilkes.ces.ncsu.edu/files/library/97/How%20to%20Prune%20Peac...
There is a good picture in this pdf on diseased and dead wood.

You should be able to control Peach Leaf Curl with this copper spray after good and sanitary pruning.

Another site for you: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7426.html

I use a two gallon metal Hudson sprayer and it works quite well. It has to be kept very clean, so I run
water through it before I spray the copper and I run mild, dilute soapy water through it after I am done and
then rinse it thoroughly.

I have had horrible infestations of Peach Leaf Curl, to the point I thought I would lose the trees and the
Liqui-Cop brought them around with good production the following year. I spray after leaf drop and I spray
the whole tree thoroughly, including the bark. You have to be careful with the overspray because it will
burn the leaves on other plants. I use old bed sheets to protect them and they have worked well.

I am not familiar with the URL from UC Davis on pruning you mentioned, so if you could post the URL that
would be great.

You are doing yourself and the trees a good favor by removing diseased fruit.


Good luck,
Greg

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Permalink Reply by Jim Crowther on November 15, 2010 at 11:39am

Here you go Greg and all that have an interest, it appears to be the same site as the third you one you have posted:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/FRUIT/nectarines.html

is the page specific on pruning of peaches and nectarines.

This site has an excellent search engine for home gardening and for commercial interests as well. Since its through the UC system, and all of you are paying for this service and a great deal of the research they perform, I encourage everyone to use it even if its just a simple "Gee, I wonder?". Lots of great info on pests and control of them can be found via the search engine and it is:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/index.html.

I have also planted a Royal Blenheim Apricot last winter and from a twig in the ground, two feet tall, it produced two fruit. I am determined to protect it from the "Peach Leaf Curl" so it too, shall get the royal treatment with copper and horticultural oil yearly because I learn it too is susceptable to curl.

I have already purchased a liquid copper fungicide and it is 1.8 % metallic copper equivalent(MCE). Monterey is 8.% and according to my research more copper is better. I paid $19.99 for this and will return it unopened to local vendor and select the higher copper spray.
Great sites with great info,
Thanks again!
Jim

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Permalink Reply by Greg Scott on November 15, 2010 at 11:07pm

Thank you Jim!

I need to tell you that apricots are a little different. They need to be pruned in late August so the wounds of the pruning heal.

Please see: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/FRUIT/CULTURAL/apripruning.html

Oh, and there is a bug (the software kind) in this NING network here. The web site for Liqui-Cop is :

www.montereylawngarden.com not montereylawngarden.org.

The editing program for the comment on the discussion does not update 'Latest Activity'.

Can you fix this? Just go into the PHP (Personal Home Page) code (in Perl script) and which is now the
HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) preprocessor and assign the pointer to update 'Latest Activity' as
well..... or is there some JavaScript code involved as well?

Can't Marc Andressen and NING buddies do better than this? No wonder Netscape lost out to Microsoft!

Anyway.....

Are not nectarines, peaches and apricots a lot more fun that the computer nonsense of Farmville!

Good luck pomology buffs!

Greg

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