Hello all
This is my first year growing peaches, and my tree took very well and is growing very vigorously, although no flowers yet. I just noticed a bunch of the new shoots appear to have wilted into blackish slime, often accompanied with a largeish chunk of clear gel like substance on top of it. Really weird. I can’t see any bugs in it, and the tree appears to be doing very well otherwise.
This is probably being caused by oriental fruit moth. Just prune the tips off.
Shoot Damage (flagging, witing tips) from OFM is similar to that caused by peach twig borers.
Where are you located. West coast tends to have more issues with twig borers. The east coast often sees OFMs.
Yikes! Those look like a lot of trouble. I’m in Japan. Is the trimming just for aesthetics, or I need to burn the damaged stuff once removed? Is the gell exuded from the tree, or bugs?
The jell is exuded by the peach tree itself and the peach does this for many possible reasons, but when it is the tips of flagging, formerly growing shoots it is always OFM as far as I know. It is common to spray for it just to keep peach trees growing in the form with the speed the grower wants. Earlier generations can also attack fruit, making it somewhat more nutritious but less desirable, if you know what I mean. Here in NY they mostly are a problem with growing shoots (earlier generations are killed with sprays targeting spring pests). I control them with pesticide, lightly spraying only growing shoots earlier in the summer but now that I’ve stopped this year I’m seeing some damage again. I haven’t sprayed for them since late July or so.
another thing to watch for is sap ooze on the trunk, commonly in branch crotches. If you find this probe the affected area with a straightened paper clip or small nail. You are just poking it in repeatedly to kill the borer. I have a yearling tree and just poked half a dozen spots
They sound dreadful! I don’t like poisons near food, but I got a feeling that spring spray at least will be required. They drop eggs in the flower and the fruit gets the horrid worm? I was going to bag the peaches (worked for my grapes this year), but if so I imagine poison is only option?
Some really good answers already posted here. My only thought is to find out for sure if you have Oriental fruit moth or Peach Twig borer. Both cause flagging, but as Mamuang mentioned, peach twig borer only affects the western regions of the U.S.
My guess is that since you are in the Orient, there is a high probably dealing with Oriental fruit moth. It originated in China.
In the Midwest Oriental fruit moth is a season long pest. I’ll note that in the Northeast U.S. Oriental fruit moth doesn’t appear to be near the problem it is in the Midwest or Southeast. I’ve no idea why that is, but would be interested in some educated guesses?
Well, I got to inspect the tree yesterday closely. There are absolutely no lesions on the bark, joints, or trunk. Only the shoots coming off the branches are damaged, and quite a few of them are damaged. I recall seeing moths hanging around on the tree before, at night.
I’m hoping next year I can just cover up the fruit with protective paper bags. I’ve use these on my grapes this year, and they worked wonderfully. I’m not sure if it will be that simple for peaches though.
I asked a local farmer about growing peaches last year, and she said she attempted it but without sprays or babying and ended up with a lot of bugs in the fruit, ended up cutting the tree down. However, she was also negative about growing grapes without sprays and babying, and so far it’s worked out great for me.
Edit: must I prune the damaged tips, or is it just for aesthetics?
Sometimes whenI trim oFf those flagging shoots, I find tiny worms inside. I always cut far enough until I see no hole inside that twig/shoot to ensure that no worm can take up in it.
Re. Using paper bags, I think peaches need sunlight to sweeten and color up. I could be wrong.
I tried using snadwich bags this year. Not good. I believe it made my brown rot issue worse when peaches inside the bags get moisture trapped in the bags almost constantly.
I gave up on footsies, too. It made spraying more difficult and the peaches stayed wet longer because of the nylon. End up helping brown rot.
From next year on, I will srpay with Surround and Spinosad and add Indar later for brown rot.
I am about have it with peaches and its issues.
I’ll try to find out what the commercial farmers do here, because the peaches available from them are absolutely gorgeous - and flawless.
The bags I used for grapes are specifically made for them here. There’s a metal twist tie built into the top, and the two slits at the bottom to let moisture out are done in such away it’s very difficult for bugs to get in through there. They also let quite a bit of sunlight through as it’s opaque quite paper.
I tried them on some sweet peppers, and it was a great success. I had very large flawless beautiful looking colored peppers, which normally would have at least some damage.
I also tried them on BlackBerries, and it was a total failure. All of the blackberries develop mold or rotted with in the bags.
I didn’t have any fruit on the peach trees this year so I couldn’t try, and I have no idea how hard au naturel is . I will try to track down a commercial farmer though.
Edit: so to be safe I should lop off all the ends and burn them?
I cut off all flagging ends and throw them out with trash. I do not let those ends lying around on the ground and not in a compost pile.
Can you take pictures of those bags. I would like to see what they look like.
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Sure, here’s the bags. They’re about 4$ per 100. I also stopped crows from opening the bags by useing mesh bags overtop:
Nice. Thanks. I wonder if such bags are sold in the US.
Hi guys, an update tonight. Just saw first signs of it again this season:
This is the first year it’s bloomed, so not sure if they’ll attack the fruit or not. How do they enter the fruit? If there’s a physical barrier tightly put on like a bag when the fruit first forms, will they not be able to get into the fruit? Or does it not work like that?
On the positive side, the tree looks absolutely gorgeous:
Looks like Canker. It has to be cut out, destroyed and sprayed. Don’t wait.
These are all mainly on sections of the tree that were damaged last year, tips (apparently from OFM). I didn’t remove anything from last year. Should I cut off all those damaged tips now? Or just leave it alone? The main of the tree looks totally fine, this stuff is mainly happening on some of the previously damaged tips.
They could have gotten infected in some of the wounds. Those are small enough injuries that they are not all that big a deal, but peach trees can take a lot of pruning so generally you can prune it all out without setting the tree back in any way. I end up cutting out nearly all stuff that looks even a bit iffy on my peach trees.
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OK I was able to cut just about everything suspicious looking off. How do these bugs get inside of the peaches? Will a tightly fitting paper bag just after fruit sets stop them?
First NiceGuy, I think it’s fabulous you are posting from Japan. So much wonderful fruit comes from your country.
Again so much good advice here.
I’ve never used tightly fitting paper bags on peaches, so I don’t know if it will stop the “bugs”. Be aware it could “help” the fungus, due to retaining moisture.
I can only say the “absolutely gorgeous” peaches you reference from the commercial farmers are almost certainly sprayed (I’m thinking Japan is fairly humid and rainy, which is very conducive to pest propagation and fruit damage.)
I can attest about 95% of customers here don’t want any defects in their purchased fruit, which is of course the prerogative of customers. Don’t compare your home grown no-spray fruits to the standards of commercial growers.
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