Bacterial Spot resistant peach for zone 5?

[galinas]

Hi, my 9 yeas old Reliance peach didn’t have any fruit this year after 7 years of steady production the April freeze to blame. But all that 6 years it was badly infected with Bacterial spot - from several 5 gallon buckets of fruit it was probably just few peaches I can give to somebody without long lecture that no, it is not dangerous to eat. We have all the factors for this problem to be severe: The spring is very windy, the road the orchard located near by is unpaved (no other spot!) and all the sand from fighting North Eastern storms is still on the roads. My orchard is very tiny, I only can afford dwarf or in worst case semi-dwarf trees. I am going to plant a new peach tree that has better resistance to Bacterial spot, the problem is, I am having difficulty to find what I need. I want free-stone, yellow flesh, bacterial spot resistant, dwarf(semi-dwarf) peach hardy for zone 5 and also self pollinated. Any suggestions?
And a second question. To plant a new tree, I need to remove a tree. I have Green Gage plum growing vigorously for 8 years. For all this years I didn’t have a single plum from it. But every year it grows so much, i have to prune it twice not to let it go to the wires above. So my patience is over - it has to go this year and empty the spot for a new peach tree. Only issue I have with it, this tree is infected with Black Knot. If I remove it this summer(too busy with other garden yet), will it be safe to plant a new peach there next spring? Bellow is a picture of my “orchard”(do not laugh ). Left front - peach tree, behind it dwarf sour cherry, middle back - Green Gage to go, right front - young Mt. Royal plum, right back -young Harglow apricot.

Thanks!

[Matt_in_Maryland]

Harrow Diamond peach and Harmony peach (aka Canadian Harmony) both might do well for you. HD is an early-season peach; CH is a mid-late season peach. Both reported to be cold-hardy and bact spot resistant. Both bred in Ontario. HD is semi-freestone and CH is freestone. I’ve tasted CH and it is one of my favorite peaches. Both are available from White Oak Nursery of Strasburg, PA (Amish nursery-- no website-- search other threads for phone number). Occassionally, White Oak puts its peaches on Krymsk-1 dwarfing rootstock. Call them for a catalog.

[galinas]

Thanks a lot, I will search for it!

[Outdoor334]

are you sure it;s bacterial spot (BS)? might be spray damage or something else. all my cold hardy varieties seem to be resistant to BS. i live in the south where BS is an issue and so far my 3yr reliance hasn’t had it. neither has contender or intrepid (all cold hardy varieties). all my low chill early varieties have BS every year. I have to spray heavy with copper in spring but i stop after pedal fall because the copper can damage the leaves and small fruit - same as BS.

i had one other spot for a peach and i wanted one resistant to BS, was late season, white flesh, hardy with excellent quality. ended up choosing Blushingstar. Still early (only 2nd leaf) but i will get to sample some this summer.

[galinas]

Yes, I am pretty sure it is BS. I didn’t do any spraying when peaches were settled. Here is how it looked like:

[Olpea]

Galinas,

Lovely planting of trees.

Harrow Diamond is bac. spot resistant and a good zone 5 tree. Matt mentioned Canadian Harmony too, but I’ve found Canadian Harmony fairly susceptible to bac. spot. Last year we had terrible rains and the comparison of some varieties over others was very stark.

Candian Harmony wasn’t the worst, but it did have considerable shot hole w/ some defoliation and the fruit was a little spotty. Harrow Diamond was clean on foliage and fruit.

Here is a Michigan list of bac. spot cultivar susc. There are lots of bac. spot cultivar lists on the internet with some variation in rankings. Of this list I would rate Canadian Harmony here w/ lower resistance than Moderate. I would probably rate it Fair.

Management of bacterial spot on peaches and nectarines

Here is an article from MSU for good cultivar choices for home plantings.

http://www.michiganpeach.org/growbackyard.html

[galinas]

Thanks a lot, Olpea, I will look it up.

[Olpea]

Galinas,

I’m still not convinced that’s bac. spot. It sort of looks like a very severe case bac. spot, but it also looks like it could be some type of severe catfacing (not stink bug catfacing).

Are you seeing symptoms on the leaves? If that’s bac. spot on the fruit, with a case that bad, the tree should have lots and lots of shothole on the foliage, with plenty of defoliation (perhaps complete defoliation).

[Matt_in_Maryland]

Galinas,

Use Olpea’s advice as your touchstone. He has vastly more first-hand experience than I do.

[Matt_in_Maryland]

The insides of those peaches look yummy!

[blueberrythrill]

I’m still not convinced that’s bac. spot.

Me too. I’m confused by the way many disease and insect problems look similar. Peach scab, Shothole and Bacterial Spot look a lot alike to me! If its BS, its the worst case I have ever seen. The lesions in the picture look a lot like scab, but I’m not an expert.

[mamuang]

The pictures esp. the first one looked like stinkbug damage than anything else. I should know, My last year peaches were all damaged by them.

[galinas]

Olpea, actually, no, the leaves do not look affected at all and do not fell from the tree. The problem starts when the peaches are about walnut size or even less - they start to produce clear gummy staff on them, and basically every peach is affected. I do have stink bugs in the garden, but to be that severe, they should be all over the peach tree, and they are not, never see them there… At first I thought it is a result of oriental moth(I had it pretty bad for few years). Last two years I use bug zapper with OM lure, and as you can see - no moth inside. I was really surprised to see that almost every peach was perfectly fine inside, and that ugly outside. So I will take any suggestions on what it could be and how to fight it… Thanks!

[galinas]

OK, mamuang, if it is stink bugs, what to do? Though again, I didn’t see them…

[mrsg47]

Your orchard is beautiful! Great selection of trees too!

[galinas]

mrsg47, thanks! When you have so little space you have to be careful om what you plant) Especially with my husband, that is plant rights activist) According to him, anything that is not completely dead should be left alone to grow, doesn’t matter if it produces or not, and I do not agree with him on that, but to take the fights to he minimum, I have to choose trees carefully

[Olpea]

Galinas,

If you aren’t seeing symptoms on the foliage, with the fruit that bad it’s almost certainly not back spot.

I’ve not seen stink bugs do that to peaches here. Generally they deform the peaches here (sort of crinkle them up because where they suckered the juice out it kills the peach cells in that area. However Mamuang is very observant with her trees so perhaps stink bug behaves differently there.

Either way my guess is that it’s some catfacing insect.

It could be scab, but I’ve not seen scab that bad. If it’s scab that bad you should see all kinds of lesions in the dormant season on the summers new growth. At least that’s what I’ve seen so far. You can Google scab twig lesions to see what they look like.

[galinas]

yes, thanks, I will google. But basically, other them brown rot, that is also affects the branches where the foliage is too thick, I do not see any other alarming signs on the twigs…

[mamuang]

Galinas,
I posted a few pictures of my damaged peaches here last spring. The consensus was that it’s Brown marmorated stinkbugs. We have them here but last year was the first time my fruit, peaches, pears and apples showed sings of damage.

[galinas]

Looks like I am back to square 1. I started my search from google. Didn’t find anything 100% fitting. Asked on the another forum. Got BS as answer. Now searching in Google - nothing, even BS fits). I am lost. I guess I have wait for next year I have peaches and make pictures in all stages to present them to experts here).