Is this peach leaf curl?

May 21, 2010 7:09 AM

Do my plum-nectarine trees [flckr] have peach leaf curl?

Fungicide was applied to the ground last winter, but perhaps a more aggressive approach [pdf], applying it to the branches both after the leaves fall and before the spring buds show is called for? I'll also collecting infected fallen leaves and fruit to avoid re-infection.

My gardner didn't find aphids.

The trees were planted about two years ago. This will be their third summer. They were infected last summer also. The previous owners report getting fruit in mid-July the first summer.

The previous owners called them "Plum-Nectarine" and said they are stone-free. Nectaplums seem to have stones, so I'm not sure what hybrid these are.

I'm in San Jose, California.

posted by morganw to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

Best answer: That is peach leaf curl. It got a peach in my garden two years ago. You can expect quite a bit of leaf fall. There's nothing to be done for this year, until around Halloween. Here's a link about the regimen. My peach only had one year's worth of peach leaf curl and it came back normally the next year.

Sometimes, even if you spray properly, rain will wash off the spray. Last year was pretty wet. If it rains within a couple of days after the fall spraying then it's worth re-applying but only once.
posted by jet_silver at 8:23 AM on May 21, 2010

Yep, looks like it to me.
My husband and I just picked all the affected leaves off our own tree last weekend. It may help, though I don't know if it's practical in your case; our tree was fairly lightly infected. The fewer spores produced, the fewer you need to kill in the fall...
Also, are you sure the previous owners didn't say freestone?
posted by Adridne at 10:12 AM on May 21, 2010

Now that you have your peach leaf curl questions answered, I wanted to let you know that I think you have the stone designation backward. There are no "stone-free" stone fruits, but some stone fruits are "freestone," which means that when the fruit is ripe it can be easily separated from the pit/stone. See the definitions on this page.
posted by jocelmeow at 10:28 AM on May 21, 2010

I've been off and on battling curl on our peach tree. The Microcop plus some sort of "stick" additive was really effective the year I remembered to do it in the fall, per the directions in jet_silver's link. Not so much this year as I forgot, which is really easy to do becuase you need to treat in the fall and winter, when you usually aren't thinking about your peaches. I would suggest putting this on a calendar somewhere (like I am going to do right now). For what it's worth we've had PLENTY of peaches even with the curl going full bore.
posted by Big_B at 1:06 PM on May 21, 2010

Response by poster: some stone fruits are "freestone,"

Oops, yup. The previous owners wrote "The fruit trees that line the left side of the back yard are Plum-Nectars. They produce amazing free stone nectarines that are delicious! The fruit was ripe in mid-late July ... sorry, we ate them all!"

Must. Resist. This Is Just To Say snowclone....

Thanks for the answers! I've got some work ahead, but I hope it'll pay off next summer.
posted by morganw at 3:29 PM on May 22, 2010

Glad you got some good answers! If you've never grown stone fruit before, you might take a look at the Dave Wilson Nursery site or contact your extension office to learn about it. Proper pruning and thinning are two tasks that you'll definitely want to learn about. And do remember that all the fruit of a variety will come ripe within the same 10-day to two week period...if you get a great yield you'll want to be ready to deal with it!
posted by jocelmeow at 3:05 PM on May 23, 2010