Help with Peach Tree Please ?

Hi Folks,

I bought myself a peach tree last year around 6ft tall, I was told it would fruit the same year, which it did I got 13 edible peaches from it last september.

This year however if flowered early and all was looking fine, then as the peaches started to form they shrivled and died off, the leaves started to turn red and like a curly blistery kind of shape, I could not see any insects or eggs anywere, only ant's running over the branches. the ants seem to have gone now, but all bar 2 peaches have died and the leaves are still curling and going red.

Is this normal, or is something attacking the tree ?

I have a pear tree next to it around the same size and that is fine, nothing is attacking that.

 

i had a peach that did the same,i stripped of and burned all deformed leaves the new leaves grew back fine but went deformed again apparantely quite common with peach i couldnt be bothered with the hassle plus it was just ugly so got rid :D

 

Its peach leaf curl eliminator, its a fugal disease.

The usual advice is to spray with copper before it flowers in early spring and again in Autumn once the leaves fall.

Good luck though, its a devil of a problem.

 

Is there a spray I can ask for ? as I would feel a bit daft in my local garden centre asking for spray metal.

thanks

 

Ask for Bordeaux mixture Eliminator.

I sprayed one of my peach trees and left the other one for comparison. The sprayed tree has far less peach leaf curl but the unsprayed one has recovered and both are covered in fruitlets.

 

Yep any copper based fungicide that is available.

 

Ok this might be a daft question, but I am new, lol

What or how does the copper kill off the fungus ? I am a self employed electrician and I have loads of copper wire booting round the shed, would wrapping copper wire round the trunk and branches have the same affect or am I missing the point on the copper thing ?

I have used copper wire in the past on Bonsai trees and it does no harm to the tree, or does the spray have some element that the wire would not ?

Cheers

 

I'm not a chemist or expert on fungicides but as I understand it the spay contains copper sulphate, I think.

When diluted or mixed to the correct dilution it kills fungus and fungal spores but does not harm plants, other than fungi.

There are a few plants that can be affected by copper sprays but usually the pack will give warning on those.