While you may not notice symptoms of peach leaf curl until the spring, you should manage it in the fall and winter.
Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease that primarily affects peach and nectarine trees. Fungal spores overwinter on twigs and flower buds and germinate in the spring causing distorted, reddened leaves. Unfortunately, this disease cannot be effectively managed once the symptoms appear in the spring, so experts recommend pesticide treatments before bud break (when new flower buds begin to open).
Timing of the first treatment in the dormant season should be made after leaves have dropped in the fall and winter. This is often in late November or early December. Treat affected trees with a fungicide...
- Author: Lauren Fordyce
Spring is just around the corner and many types of fruit trees are starting to develop their leaves. If you are growing peaches or nectarines and are now seeing symptoms of peach leaf curl on new leaves, unfortunately it's too late to manage the disease.
According to University of California research, peach leaf curl can only be effectively managed during the fall and winter, after leaves have dropped but before buds swell in spring. After bud break (when new buds begin to open), you may notice symptoms on new leaves but at this point, there are no effective controls. Pesticides used against peach leaf curl prevent the disease as opposed to curing it. Currently there are no verified curative methods for controlling...
Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease that only affects peach and nectarine trees. The fungus causes distorted, reddened leaves to appear on the tree in the spring. While many peach and nectarine trees don't begin to show obvious symptoms of peach leaf curl until the spring, the time to manage the disease is in late fall and winter.
If left untreated for several years, trees can decline and need to be removed. In some cases, peach leaf curl can affect the quality of fruit too.
To effectively control peach leaf curl, spray an appropriate fungicide in the fall or winter, after leaf drop but before flower buds swell in the spring. The fungal spores overwinter on peach and nectarine twigs and flower buds. If left...
- Author: Elaine Lander
(Credit: Jack Kelly Clark)
Fungal spores spend the winter on twigs and buds before germinating in the spring....
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