I have a mystery(sold as Georgia bell) early peach tree I usually harvest in Mid-July, so I was surprised to find a peach on that tree is soft already today.
The peach looked pretty good outside, but inside looked very different. I saw 3 wiggly worms, it’s pretty gross. I picked 2 more peaches from that tree, both have worms. For all these years I grow peach, this is the first time I saw worm inside the peach.
In the past, the peaches may not looked pretty outside: they may have scars, may be disfigured, but I never saw live worms inside. This time is different, the peaches looked very good from outside.
I have sprayed Triazacide (not immunox ) and captan at bud break,missed the petal fall spray because the multiple deep freeze in April, but I sprayed at schuk split and one more times 10 days after.
Are all the worm damages because I missed one spray at petal fall or the immunox was ineffective? I did buy fresh Triazacide (not immunox,)from Home Depot, but did not do a bug test.
I know it’s too late for this early peach, but are there anything I can do for the other three peach trees? They are still 30-60 days from harvest, the fruits are still very small and green.
Because of the freeze in April, this mystery peach has only 20+ Fruits while in previous years I can pick 40 lb of peaches. What can you do with 20 wormy peaches?`😟
Peaches are tough to grow without spraying with surround or other sprays that I don’t think your using. I’m sure others will advise what type sprays to use. Sorry about the wormy peaches. I plan to use surround as my peach and plum trees start fruiting.
I’m very sorry for your bad luck. It’s extremely frustrating the cut into a beautiful looking peach and discover larvae (worms) and rot on the inside.
You mentioned immunox and captan, but didn’t list any insecticides. Those are both fungicides but don’t do much (if anything) to prevent the “worms” you are finding. Those “worms” are most likely larvae (ie babies) of Oriental Fruit Moth or Plum Curculio - both are insects that lay eggs into fruit so they can hatch and borrow toward the seed in the center as part of their life cycle.
You said you’ve grown peaches for a while, so I’m sorry if you know all of this and I sound like I’m talking to you as a beginner. Also, I’m a relative beginner myself so you may well know more than me about fruit growing. Certainly most people here do know more than me. But I still wanted to offer up a little info based on your list of products used. Others may be more helpful.
EDIT: I was typing my reply while Bill was typing his, but it sounds like we agree. His post also made me want to list a couple of sprays. One is imidan, but you have to order it and buy in large amounts. The other is available where ever you bought your immunox (Lowe s, etc) and is called Triazicide. And a safer, organic product is called Surround (as Bill mentioned) but I’m not knowledgeable about it. Good luck.
There’s nothing you can do for the other trees. They will have worms
also. If it’s any consolation, this is a bad year for PC. It’s the worst
I’ve ever seen.
If the parts of the peaches taste good then you can cut out the bad spots and leave on the skin and boil the peaches and then remove the seeds and make peach preserves with the skin, blend it for peach juice. You can cut up the good pieces of peach and coat them in sugar and soak them overnight for peach cobbler. You mix up 1 cup each of flour and sugar and add buttermilk until it’s slightly watery then put the flour mixture in the pan FIRST as it will rise up to the top of the peach cobbler. Add the peaches and juice broadcasting some of the juice over the top of the dough mixture so it’s shiny and leave puddles of juice in places and add the peaches. This way the dough is peachy flavored and you just need faith that the dough will rise but it ALWAYS does and then you have peach cobbler
