Is this chronic? Or seasonal?
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Both…every spring when leaves emerge they get infected. So, it needs to be sprayed before green tip
I grow leaf curl resistant peaches.
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I’m not too interested in varieties that require spraying anymore. I had one tree so affected by PLC last year that it died (small tree from nursery). I grafted over the 3 remaining trees by top working with plums, plumcot, and pluot varieties.
Strange thing is I left about half of the original branch’s I top worked, and this year so far there was no PLC on the peach/apricot/nectarine trees that I grafted over to plum varieties.
I was hoping I might see some fruit forming from the blooms of the original peach/nectarine varieties, but no such luck. Still, I was surprised when none of the remaining leaves had PLC this year, as last year the trees were decimated by it.
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By contrast, my “Oregon Curlfree” that only had mild PLC last year is showing a more severe case this year. And despite a heavy bloom, looks like no fruit set either. A little disappointing, but there’s always next year!
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From my understanding of PLC. It is seasonal in the sense the the climatic conditions during the bud break has to be 45F to 70F and with over 80% humidity for 2 or more weeks.
It’s chronic in the sense, if you get some PLC one year, don’t spray the following dormant season and a wet spring during the bud break the severity will be much higher.
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why worry about leaf curl? I have a Floridaprince some years it gets it if it rains at the wrong time so what? It looks ugly for a month, then those leaves fall down, new and healthy leaves take over, fruit is rarely affected. get tons of healthy organic delicious, juicy peaches, while some people spray harsh chemicals on the fruit they will eat and slowly poison themselves and they still get leaf curl. I would say live with it, or get a leaf curl resistant variety.
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You’re in the CA central valley, of course you don’t need to worry about leaf curl much there! It can completely kill young trees in other climates, though, like here in the PNW. Even the curl resistant varieties can get it badly enough that they can decline and fail to set fruit.
But I do agree with the rest… I’m growing resistant varieties and not spraying anything. If PLC proves to be too big of a problem, I’ll just not grow peaches here! But I can understand people who would rather spray some copper and not get PLC at all. But I’m not interested in spraying anything.
Here’s what my “curl resistant variety” (Oregon Curlfree) looks like this spring:
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are there any other parts of the tree growing without curl? you may have to fertilize with fish emulsion once a week to get the foliage regrow quick.
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Most branches have at least some curl, but I’d say about 30% of the leaves still look mostly OK, with just a hint of curl, while about 50% look like the photo above, with the rest somewhere in between.
I’m not worried too much about the overall health of the tree. It will probably end up adding a few feet of growth at least this summer. But we do have curl-enhancing weather in the forecast, so it’s possible the other new growth will worsen in the near term:
I think the infection period is over unless your tree still has a few buds that haven’t reached green tip.
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So its not chronic in the sense that if my peach is affected this year( it has no roof above), and i move it to a greenhouse this year. Next year there is a chance it doesnt get it again? Or once it has suffered from it the sickness remains within the tree till next year?
Move it to greenhouse and make sure the upper part of the tree remains dry until it full leaf out. There hasn’t been much research done on longterm viability of ascospores, but anecdotal experience shows us it is quite possible the spores can stay on the tree for few years and can cause reinfection down the lane.
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If you thought peach leaf curl was bad in the US, here in the UK peaches cannot be grown because the weather is so wet during winter and spring, that peaches are almost instantly killed by the disease! The only cultivar resistant enough to be planted outside is Avalon Pride. I have tried multiple times with expensive trees, they just get killed and fruit falls off, even from 1 metre tall potted standards. 
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I kept on removing infected leafs and branches during the worst times and fed it with a compost tea and Nettle tea as a foliar application. it stopped somewhere around May with showing curl, the tree becomes a lil out of shape, yet it has massive growing power so i worry not much its not even 2 years old.
I noticed this spring that the less sunny moist bottom of the tree towards the ground was more affected. So i had that be gone. Would u guys select and prune some scions away on top or let it roll?