Found this guy this morning in a peach seedling.
He lived long enough to pose for the picture. Are there any preventative measures I should take against borers at this time for other trees?
Since peach tree borers can infect all stone fruit, any other stone fruit trees could be at risk.
An oft used home remedy for borers is moth balls at the base of the tree.
“Paradichlorobenzene (PDB) moth crystals may also help control infestations.”
Mark,
Thanks for the link. There have been discussions in this forum several times about the use of mothballs against borers. They are those who believe it and those who do not.
Glad to see an article from an extension service describing the why and the how.
I have used them in the past but my timing was not as suggested. Good to know.
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Thanks Olpea. I see Neem oil also suggested during certain times. I will try hard to be vigilant and treat using these methods.
Brad,
You can also paint the trunks with latex paint, if you haven’t done so already (I generally see the recommendation to dilute the paint, but I’ve used straight/undiluted paint without any problems.)
I’ve not seen any serious publications suggesting neem for treatment of peach tree borer (There may be some serious publications suggesting it, and perhaps I haven’t seen them.) Nevertheless, @scottfsmith has reported using neem to control borers. He paints the neem oil on undiluted, which may be the key.
I’ve been using azadirachtin - borers might be a good place to try it
This has been my experience:
Good luck.
I am a total convert to my raw neem treatment. I did a borers check last weekend and only one peach of ~50 had borers. I also found them on an apricot and remembered that the nursery used peach rootstock and I had forgotten that fact and was not treating it. Sometime this winter I will paint the trunk bottoms with raw neem. Note I would only use this on 3+ year old peach trees to be safe; I do it on all my trees but it is hard on the bark. I also think winter is the best time as the neem is not as harsh on the bark then due to colder temps.
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Scott,
I’m just wondering: Have you tried the latex paint/joint compound/water method as well for borers? How would you say the neem would compare to that?
I don’t know if I want to stop painting the tree, but thinking maybe of adding some neem oil to the paint mixture…any opinion if that would be an added deterrent or not?
I tried straight latex paint and the borers laughed at it. There is probably some other compound that would work but they are genetic experts at boring through things so its not easy to beat them. Looking at the Fedco info on the joint compound they mention how the white background helps detect borer frass if the compound fails – thats not sounding like a winning recipe to me!
Get the neem, kill the borers 
Thanks for this info @scottfsmith. Can you remind us where you purchase your raw neem?
I found this borer on a young, 1/2 inch tree and it completely girdled it. Not a huge loss since I hadn’t grafted anything to it yet but I’d like to have the neem for the older trees and be ready to start treating the younger trees once they are ready. I think I’ll use the paint or mix for the younger ones to help identify signs earlier. I was surprised at how large that borer was (close to 1.5") for such a small tree.
See my link above. In that discussion, Scott reveals his source.