Peach leaf curl is a disease that affects peach and nectarine trees. Although you may not see symptoms right now in the dormant season in California, it's time to think about treatment, especially if your tree had the disease last year.
Symptoms of this fungal disease include distortion, thickening, and reddening of foliage as trees leaf out in the spring. As weather warms, damaged leaves that die and fall off trees are replaced with new, usually healthy leaves. However, after several years without treatment, peach leaf curl will cause tree decline and reduced fruit production.
Avoid peach leaf curl by growing varieties resistant to the disease. For nonresistant peach and nectarine trees, consider spraying with...
![Foliage damaged by peach leaf curl. [J.K.Clark]](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/UCIPMurbanpests/blogfiles/41592small.jpg)
Winter slows down many garden pest problems, but it's also a key time for gardeners to take actions to prevent certain pest problems that occur in the spring. One of the most important of these preventive practices is application of dormant treatments for peach leaf curl.
Caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans, peach leaf curl is a very serious disease, which affects only peach and nectarine trees. Its most distinctive symptom is distortion, thickening, and reddening of foliage as trees leaf out in the spring. Damaged leaves often die and fall off trees but will be replaced with new, usually healthy leaves once the weather turns dry and warmer. A leaf curl infection that continues untreated over several years will...
- Author: Mary Louise Flint
[From March 2013 issue of the Retail Nursery and Garden Center IPM News.]
March is the time to start preparing to manage codling moth on apples and pears in backyard trees. Left unmanaged, the insect can be devastating to the crop.
Life Cycle. The immature stage of the codling moth is the infamous “worm” in the apple or pear (Figure 1). This pest spends the winter as a mature larva in a pupal case on trunks of trees or in debris around the home orchard. When spring temperatures rise in March, pupae mature and adult moths begin emerging...
