Leaf curl and first-year peach seedlings

Hi everyone!

Some years ago I got a peach seedling that grew wonderfully on its first season, but the following spring It was completely destroyed by leaf curl and died before that summer.

I thought that the dramatic difference between the two growing seasons was due to different climatic conditions.

On the other hand, I recently read about the fact that first-year peaches are not infected by leaf curl and start to show its signs just from the second growing season, in a similar way to what happens with many allergies in mammals.

However, this peace of info came with no reputable source.

Does anyone have any experience about this behaviour?

Thank you, have a nice day!

Alessandro

I am a newbie peach grower so take my advice with a grain of salt.

My understanding of peach leaf curl is that it is a fungal disease. The fungus overwinters and the classic leaf curl effects appear in the spring when it is wet and cool.

If you live somewhere that commonly has conditions that has frequent cool wet summers, the Permie in me would recommend that you look into cultivars that are advertised as resistant to this.

Here is a thread that might have some more information for you.

Quick and easy cure for peach leaf curl is garlic spray.  You don't have to worry about waiting until leaf drop, you just spray the tree any time.  Garlic spray is readily available on Amazon, etc.  Garlic Barrier and Mosquito Barrier are two brand names.  Both work great for keeping mosquitoes out of sprayed areas as well.  A little bit of the spray goes a long way.  The spray is diluted 100:1 with water.  After spraying, you should see new leaf growth within a few days.

Hi Timothy,

Thank you for your intervention!

Even though leaf curl is a fungal disease, my doubt is about the existence of a mechanism of this kind:

1) First-year seedling sprouts in spring
2) It gets the disease but does not develop evident signs due to some immaturity of the plant immune system or something of this kind
3) Second year seedling sprouts the following spring
4) It gets the disease again but this time the effects are clear and destructive

Just like a person allergic to something needs to be exposed twice to the allergene to show symptoms, even though the allergy was present from the beginning from a genetic point of view (I know allergies and fungal diseases are completely different phenomena, but just to clarify the concept)

So, if someone noticed something of this kind, please let me know!

Thank you!

Alessandro

Alessandro, I've noticed something very similar. I've grown dozens of peach trees from seed in the past 25 years. Even though I grow curl-resistant peaches nowadays, I've noticed that some curl-resistant peach trees were without any sign of the curl disease the first year or two, but when they began flowering about the third year, they would get some curl. Many years  ago, I also had some grafted, non curl-resistant varieties (Veteran) that got curl so bad they died after the third or forth year, even though they had no signs of the disease the first year or two after transplanting.

I have a solution. Grow only curl resistant varieties (Indian, Salish Summer, Avalon, Frost, etc.) and then  grow them in big pots and move them underneath areas protected from the rain during the winter until late spring. Or spray organic (OMRI approved) copper once or twice from late winter through bud break during dry spells. This plan works for me. Your trees still might get some curl in a wet spring, but should recover rapidly.

Thank you M.K.!

It's interesting to know about your experience, maybe what I observed is not due uniquely to different weather conditions between the two years then.

These days I'm prepearing about 50 peach seeds for stratification to get seedlings next spring

The idea Is to let them grow the first year, then graft with a local red-fleshed variety which is well adapted to my alpine climate and is curl resistant (tested this year), so i was wondering about how much I will need to spray the seedlings before grafting them and this observations came to my mind.

Thank you again!

Alessandro

My recommendation to be 100% curl free is to keep the seedlings under cover during the winter/spring, just to be sure. I always keep my peach seedlings in the greenhouse or the porch  during the winter and spring.

I'm also interested in Trace's recommendation for using garlic spray, as I had never heard of this technique for preventing peach leaf curl. Here's more info about garlic spray from Wintercove Farm:

https://wintercovefarm.com/stop-peach-leaf-curl-naturally/

I might do an experiment with garlic spray vs. copper next winter and see what happens.

I grow my trees from pits from store-bought peaches so no idea what varieties they might be. Some are fairly resistant and others are not. If a tree is too badly affected I cut it down as I have learned that some trees will survive for many years but never produce fruit if they have curl. They always look sick but don't die.

Most of my current trees are children of one very good tree. They are not 100% resistant. Some will have some curl but still produce fruit so I leave those to grow.

This spring I had a lot of sprouts. Some first year sprouts got curl after a few months. I cut those out. I have enough good trees now that I don't need to try to save every tree.

This year for the first time I got a few nectarines. This was a tree that had bad curl and I cut it down years ago. It grew back from the stump and looked healthy so I left it. It took over ten years for this tree to produce it's first fruit! I didn't even know it was nectarine not peach until this year.

nectarine

Thom Bri wrote:I grow my trees from pits from store-bought peaches so no idea what varieties they might be.

It took over ten years for this tree to produce its first fruit! I didn't even know it was nectarine not peach until this year.

Lucky you Thom!

I planted the pit from a delicious nectarine that I’d eaten and after 4 years it finally fruited only to produce fuzzy peaches.

I read somewhere that nectarines are a fuzzless peach mutation. However, the peaches still taste pretty good and I grafted a plum onto the tree so not a total waste of time.

I have found that a diluted wood vinegar solution spray regime ago bud burst in fortnightly intervals has helped reduce but not completely eliminate leaf curl - the theory being that the wood vinegar encourages beneficial fungal activity.