Dont forget persimmons and mulberries pears…
I grew no spray peaches here in TN near 20 years… early on did pretty good… later on the OFM… and then finally BR showed up… game over.
My early ripening peach… worked better than my later peach… but eventually i gave up on both.
Replaced them with raspberries and persimmons and strawberries.
Thats a good summary … it can work for awhile. I got five years in myself before brown rot wiped me out and the curculio and moths got well-established. Historically the bugs and diseases took quite awhile to adapt to peaches so it was in fact easy for quite a while. But by the later 1800’s it was lead and arsenic to the rescue for any commercial peach grower, plus many pounds of sulfur to tamp down the rot as much as possible.
Fludioxonil was found on 76% of all peaches in one study. It is used as a postharvest dip to control rot in storage. Switch fungicide that contains it plus Cyprodinil is labeled for blueberries and strawberries day of harvest spray. Between those fruit and berries the average consumer is getting a dose of whatever residue remains. Interestingly its also labeled for watermelon 1 day PHI. Guess its ok to eat berries with it on it right after spraying but not to pick up a watermelon sprayed the same day.
I imagine so in grocery stores. Ive never seen a label on anything that said chemicals… so i guess its a dont ask dont tell kind of thing. The average citizen should probably go to a USDA website or something on each thing they purchase and decide for themselves i guess. That makes the most sense to me.
I imagine not in Farmers Markets and Roadside stands and U-pick. Ive never seen a ‘Fed’ checking anything that anyone brought in from who knows where. Maybe it happens when im not looking. Maybe the farmer tests it themselves before they sell to children and common folk.
I know that myself and friends go to Farmers Markets to get things that are ‘better’ than supermarkets but maybe and probably they have more chemicals.
I know its a touchy subject. Some of the worst feuds that i have seen on fruit growing social media groups were the spray vs no spray conversations.
Can you grow anything u want no spray? In my local community yes you can. The fruits will be ugly, marred, and have lots of blemishes… you might have to cut out some worms too. But they still taste good and the old timers can them, freeze them and make cobblers and jams and jellies. They dont take pictures of them or try to sell them though.
I remember vividly my buddies dad had June Apple trees. the best tasting apples you can imagine. But you needed a pocket knife to cut out the worms…or u picked them out with your fingernail or spit them out.
I can get pictures and post on here of one of my neighbors O’Henry peaches. They are the ugliest things u can imagine. Taste fantastic.
Thanks for that article about Virginia. Even has a pic of the acid rinse to get rid of the residue. Back in the early 80’s I worked for the NC Extension Tree Fruit Specialist. We were all through the apple production areas in Hendersonville and Maggie Valley. We worked with quite a few growers ripping out old orchards and putting in semi dwarf trees in their place. Big piles of very old pushed up trees and soil they were burning. Never thought about what contaminates were in that soil that was going up in the smoke.
How old is the tree? Either it’s not so old or your neighbor is extremely lucky. The curculio and brown rot are nearly everywhere on the east coast, and with either of those strongly present in your orchard and no spraying you will get no peaches at all. Apples are another matter, I’ve had plenty of no-spray gnarled worm-infested apples that tasted great. But the topic here is peaches.
Back on the original question, it should not be impossible to grow some OK peaches with only organic sprays. Surround will make a big dent in the curculios and moths, and copper and sulfur will let you get a decent portion of rot-free fruits. I went that route for about ten years but got tired of peaches rotting right after they were put on the counter. Now the only non-organic thing I use is Indar / Elevate for brown rot control. My most rot-resistant peach is Indian Cling, it did a bit better than any other peach I tried (about fifty varieties).
A full guide of my methods are posted here, and I include a fully organic option. You don’t need to do all the things here, it depends how good a result you need.
It took a while for native insects to learn to make use of European fruits and for pests in Europe and elsewhere to establish themselves in the U.S. Also, when growing was done primarily on smallish homesteads, orchards tended to be far apart and not conducive for pests specific to fruit trees to establish. Here is from a history in the Cornell library on the subject.
Throughout the 19th century,
disease and insect problems multipHed as commercial peach production in America expanded. Peach
yellows and brown rot diseases and
insect borers became increasingly
destructive.
In 1892, the San Jose scale
insect appeared in Virginia. Its
rapid spread to other fruit areas led
to the adoption of spraying as an
orchard practice. A realization of the
value of spraying for other insects
and diseases soon developed.
Could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we have two brown rots as well. European and American rot.
Here, in some years the rain is so bad that there is no way to fight the rot and complete crops become trash.
Yup, I just finished spraying about 60 orchards with a fungicide cocktail to keep it subdued. I hate spraying, but sticking stonefruit is a big part of my business.
I thought it was a valuable article but I doubt few folks will take the time to read it.
My wife was raised in a big Apple growing area in Virginia so the article really hit home for me. I noticed one of the Superfund sites was an abandoned Apple orchard in Waynesville close to the area where you worked. Hope you did not breath too much of the toxic smoke.
10 pounds of Arsenic and 10 pounds of Lead per acre is a huge amount of poison. I’m surprised that the results of applying such large amounts of toxic material for such a long time have not been a lot worse.
I don’t know how the EPA conducts their residue tests but random samples are collected from growers, farmers markets and processors by NCDA in my state. They do not announce their arrival when they buy samples and you don’t hear about the tests unless you are out of compliance. They also can show up unannounced to check pesticide records, worker protection and pesticide storage for compliance.
I keep reading and keep thinking to myself ‘there’s no way I’m ever going going to get around not using pesticides… especially fungicides and especially for brown rot.’
I was just at an orchard I used to work at yesterday.
The brown rot in the Saturns made me want to cry.
On a different fruit note, this is year No. 2 of fire blight being at a high level at that same orchard.
Sheesh. It never ends.
Over 10 years maybe more. He bought them from Starks or Gurneys he doesnt remember so whenever the last time they sold them is probably in the ballpark. I told the story when i first joined the group. Everyone that he gives the peaches to loves them and people from our local church stop by and fill up on them. Anyway long story short he has 3 trees and all of them overbear because he doesnt thin them at all. Many hundreds fall to the ground due to the height of the tree and nobody picks them. Around late August there are so many yellowjackets that you cant get near them but we get what we can.
Last year he hired someone to chop more than half the trees off and from what i can tell they are bearing on one or two limbs this year…maybe more. Those limbs look loaded from the road.
They were probably 20 feet tall before, now they are about 10 feet tall with waterspouts everywhere.
Soil looks like reddish clay and he lives on a bit of a hill where they get full fun and lots of it.
He doesnt spray anything or water. I need to ask him if he fertilizes but i doubt it…hes in his 80s.
I gave him i think 10 trees that i ordered from CVN and he gave them to other people around here that have been looking for them for years. Old people around here dont know about internet and dont understand it. If gurneys or starks dont sell them in the catalogs then they dont exist.
Ripening time is the hottest part of August when its humid and hot and the yellowjackets are full of vigor. Ugly mid sized peaches that taste amazing.
I would talk about other trees that he grows but not on topic like you pointed out.
Fungicides is where I’m stuck with peach. I’m currently spraying bondie copper at its lowest rate and frequency, it seems to be doing ok with shot hole, which is my main issue. I know there’s better options but I’m a bit taken back as to what I should be looking at. There are so many fungicides out there it’s overwhelming. I keep going back to copper because I feel it’s working.
This is another “lucky” person in the east.
By June apple, I assume you mean Yellow Transparent. For whatever reason tgey are less affected by pests and diseases in my region, and seem to bear good crops without spraying. This in a region brimming with wild apples amd still with some significant commercial apple production.
We have heavy curculio pressure though I seldom see them bothering peaches. Winter cold makes peaches a roll of the dice afair here, though most local orchards are growong them to one extent or another. That interrupts some pest and disease cycles. I imagine brown rot doesn’t persist well without fruit and blossoms to infect, provided infected stems and mummies are dealt with. I dont spray ny peaches, but then Im not counting on a crop for my livelihood. Brown rot is a serious problem here but not a deal breaker all years by any stretch. I’ve had good luck staying ahead of picking. before brown rot strikes, though there again Im not trying to keep fruit marketable on the shelf but dealing with the harvest according to my own timeline. Some years its a case of hurry up and get them cut up and frozen (or whatever) others I can take my time eating each fruit as it comes ripe.
When 100 people, who grow peaches in the East, said it is (almost) impossible to grow peaches with no spray and 5 people said they could, would those 100 people be wrong or the 5 people were lucky?
To me, the luckiest peach growing person on this board is @TNHunter who grew peaches successfully without spray for 20 years. But he still had to give them up after pest and diseases found his peaches.
I was not that lucky. I had unblemished peaches for only two years before brown rot and pest found my peaches.
“James Prigioni” (YouTuber) grows peaches in New Jersey zone 7 and he is an organic grower. I have heard him mention Betty and Avalon Pride. He seems to have had success. He also had an older tree that seemed to do well. I have not watched as many of his earlier videos to know the details.
Is that Indian Blood Cling you are planning to pull? I am planning to add one next spring. Did you use any organic sprays or nothing at all?
Here, when it’s too wet, peaches are trash anyway. I have beautiful early peaches right now that were properly thinned and have great size, even for a mid season peach. But all the rain and grey skies have left them with too little brix to make eating them enjoyable.
I ate a barely ripe Silver Gem nect, however, and it had adequate brix to be delicious in spite of all the rain. A lot of my early nects are cracking, from all this water, but Indar and Captan are holding back the rot. The peaches didn’t even get a summer app and haven’t been sprayed since late May but still LOOK perfect.
It rained at least 7 inchers the night before last and has been raining every second or third day for the last month but we are getting some good sun in between.
I dont think so. I think officially they are called Early June or White June maybe Yellow June… its an Appalachian thing.
This description doesnt lie… they make THE BEST fried apples also. So its a very good fresh eating apple and a very good cooking apple.
There is a thread on here about June apples but they are not the same.