Fruit tree disease

April 22, 2016 10:18 AM

I have 4 fruit trees: apricot, nectarine, peach, plum. 2 of them appear very unhealthy in their foliage: apricot & peach. The other 2 are fine. What's wrong with them? Pictures

All 4 live in similar circumstances next to each other.
They are in Belgium.

posted by Akeem to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

If you uncurl one of the leaves, what's inside? We occasionally get a big aphid/blackfly attack on one of our trees, and the curling looks a lot like that - the aphids congregate inside the rolled-up part of the leaf.

The Leaf Curl Plum Aphid is a very tiny aphid that can cause leaf curling like this, although with our fruit trees the culprit seems to be common blackfly.
posted by pipeski at 10:26 AM on April 22, 2016

Best answer: Looks more like peach leaf curl. Do the leaves turn red then fall off? To fix spray with bordeaux mix in the winter.
posted by koolkat at 10:32 AM on April 22, 2016

Best answer: Do they get big red blister looking things on them later? Like so?

That can be a fungal infection called peach leaf curl. I used to have an apricot and a plum tree that had it. I controlled it with a spray.

Here's some info about it from the University of California: Peach Leaf Curl Management Guidelines
posted by Adridne at 10:32 AM on April 22, 2016

Best answer: Probably some sort of Leaf Curl fungus. Very common. You can spray the trees with a fungicide. It will require repeated application.
posted by gnutron at 10:33 AM on April 22, 2016

Best answer: Peach leaf curl?
posted by lydhre at 10:33 AM on April 22, 2016

Best answer: Yeah, there is a fungus that causes "peach leaf curl." Some tree varieties are resistant, which may explain why neighboring trees are fine.
posted by zennie at 10:35 AM on April 22, 2016

Response by poster: Great, that appears to be it. Thank you all for the fast responses.
The leaves haven't fallen off .. yet. I'll go look for the fungicides mentioned in the guidelines.
posted by Akeem at 10:55 AM on April 22, 2016