How long do peach trees last?

General Fruit Growing
#1

Someone had told me after about a dozen years peach trees need to be replaced.
Any truth to that?

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#2

I think more like 15-20 years is a realistic timeline for a home orchard. A commercial orchard might replace them sooner, and they can theoretically live 30 years or more. However, productivity will decline well before the maximum age.

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#3

This is something that will be highly climate dependent. In warm/dry mediterranean climates they will remain a lot more productive for much longer than in humid continental climates.

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#4

PTSL, peach tree short life. There are peach trees over 100 years old in there native ranges . But lots of growers consider PTSL in there growing plans for cultivated peaches.

But given that peach tree bores are native to north america and peaches are native to asia. Could just be pest pressure. Making it true.

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#5

The average life of a peach tree in Texas without borer protection is seven years.

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#6

What kind of protection do you use?

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#7

I had 2 for 20 years…

Got many good peaches from them in the earlier years… but the last 5… OFM and then brown rot set in… I got rid of them when i was having to throw away hundreds of wormy rotting peaches.

Note… I do not spray… which worked good for a good while… but eventually went south.

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#8

Also depends on variety and rootstock. I have “vineyard” (Weinbergpfirsich) peaches grown from seed that are 15 to 20+ and still nowhere near retirement. They live and prosper quite long here unlike the early varieties. Wet continental zone 7.

#9

When I lived in Amarillo, in the Texas panhandle, peach tree borers were a problem. I controlled them by spraying the trunk with diazinon. That assumes my memory is correct. Same thing I sprayed for coddling moths which were terrible there.

Further south in Alpine Texas we have neither. My biggest peach pest is stink bugs. They sting the fruit so much that it rots. I’ll spray those with the new formulation of Sevin.

#10

Plant at least a few each year and you won’t need to think about it. :grimacing:

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#11

I bet it was dursban. That is what extension service was recommending then.

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