Peach leaf curl

radiohelen

Hello - just visited my mum and her peach tree looks awful :eek: after a quick google it's clearly a victim of peach leaf curl.

My question is this. What can I do this year to support the plant? Everything I read says pull all the affected leaves and fruits off the plant and destroy. As it's just a young 'un this would completely defoliate it. What should I do?

We are going to build them a plastic tent to cover it next spring and I'll get some bordeaux mix to spray on it in November and next spring but none of that helps us right now!

Your thoughts gratefully received.

DaftyDuck

It'll probably survive, especially with the warmer, dryer weather coming. I've got it on two peach trees, an apricot, and a nectarine, all young trees. It's the cold, damp spring that does it. You can remove leaves, etc, but this in itself weakens the tree. A foliar feed will help, but do this when there's a bit of drying breeze, to stop further damp-induced infection.

Plastic tent is NOT a good idea.... it'll keep the humidity up, and any fungus that gets in (it will!!!!) will spread like wildfire. Spraying in early spring, just at bud-burst should work well. I didn't this year, and have got the blighted red bulgy leaves.

radiohelen

I'm a bit confused now. The RHS website said to put a polythene tent with open sides over the plant in spring to stop the rain delivering spores. Is this not right? They had pictures of contraptions and I was going to use a bit of polythene and a pallet.
I'll do the bordeaux mix and give it the foliar feed you suggest. Your thoughts on the other are gratefully received.

Blackjack_Davy

The RHS ones consist of a frame with polythene sheeting stretched over it, it covers it in the wintertime to keep off the rain which spreads the spores, off the shoots and also protect the blossom as it flowers very early - it's open at the bottom and the sides to give good air circulation to prevent moulds and the such like. It has to be said these trees are fan trained against walls etc because it makes it easier to cover as well as giving added warmth -

You can also spray with fungicide such as Dithane945 or a copper based fungicide but it can't restore already damaged leaves it just means new leaves will look normal - personally if the tree is that bad I'd leave the leaves rather than defoliate it, spray it to prevent it getting any worse this year and sort out some kind of screen for next year -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanbuckingham/6412298991/

DaftyDuck

Oh, tenty thing with open sides... Sorry; I had you wrapping the baby up with clingfilm. I haven't seen these posh tents; this is MSE website

No, that'd probably be OK. It is important to keep the breeze flowing through them: condensation, damp, and cool really lets the fungus set in.

It has been a bad year for peach leaf curl. Cold, damp spring, perceeded by a warm spell to get the tender leaves out early. You might find it worth giving the tree a go with just foliar feed, as the poly-wrapped tent might not be that attractive.... mind you, I've just had an image of a brightly coloured beach umbrella over my trees in the winter... That'd cheer the place up in the cold grey days.