My Peach Tree has Shot Hole Disease?
Question:How should I go about taking care of this and is there an organic way? Also, We just moved in and we know nothing of the tree...the branches are hanging low and I don't know anything on how to take care of this peach tree. How oftern should it be watered. Please help me any responses are greatly appreciated.
Answers:
Rainy weather during the blooming stage of peaches will often cause "Shot Hole Fungus" to develop. Sprinkler irrigation can make this disease worse so if you use sprinklers, make sure their angle is low enough to prevent wetting the leaves and fruit.
Try to remove and destroy infected twigs, buds, blossoms and fruit as soon as you see shot hole symptoms. Look carefully for twigs and buds with symptoms after leaf fall in autumn; infected buds have a varnished appearance. Also, remove fruit mummies (old, shriveled fruit or nuts still hanging in trees) and prune out branches with diseased twigs.
The fungus that causes shot hole survives the dormant season inside infected buds and in twig lesions. The spores produced on lesions are spread around on splashing rain or irrigation water. Twigs and buds can be infected during rainy weather any time between fall and spring.
If your trees have serious shot hole problems now, it's difficult to find and remove all the infected buds and twigs in the fall. You may want to apply a protectant fungicide such as Bordeaux or fixed copper at about the time of leaf fall, and before the first rains. You can also apply these fungicides to peaches and nectarines at the pink bud stage. However, copper fungicides may injure leaves, so you can only use them for a short time in spring. Synthetic fungicides such as Chlorothalonil (sold as "Daconil" in hardware stores) are good in controlling shot hole and do not injure leaves.
The organic approach to controlling this disease is to spray with Lime Sulphur during bud formation (flowers development) in the spring.
For fertilization, you should be applying a balanced fertilizer, such as a 12-12-12 or a 10-10-10 once a month until harvest. Irrigation, depending on how hot it is there, should be done once every week or 10 days throughout the growing season. Just keep the soil moist and NOT soaked.
Hope this answers your question. Good luck!
-Certified Professional Crop Consultant with over 30 years of experience and a Degree in Plant Science
We used to have lots of peach trees on our land when I was growing up. All the trees had something wrong with them, a gooey black substance (is that shot hold disease), but it never ever effected the peaches. The peaches were huge. My mom used to get out the bug spray and spray the leaves but it never cleared up the gooey stuff. I remember from time to time she would trim the branches and I'm pretty sure you do that in the fall after you've removed the peaches. I don't think she fed them, but feeding would help them. you can always call your county horticulturist or your nearest plant nursery and ask.
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