The leaves on my Rich May peach tree are starting to turn red. I’m not sure why or what to do about it
Should I give it some fertilizer?
Here are some photos …,(having trouble with the photos right now)
Your tree looks dry and looks to be going dormant. It’s pretty early for that in Virginia. Trees also can look like that when something is wrong. Say from a tie girdling the trunk. Or from being girdled via weed whacker.
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I have one Reliance Peach tree (3rd year in ground) that is doing the same thing as your tree - turning yellow, almost red and as Fruitnut said looking like it is getting ready to go dormant. I can only assume that since we have had a light drought in the Lynchburg, Virginia area and the tree is stressed due to the drought, But this tree has done this every year since it has been planted. I think it may be on Citation rootstock which from what I read is overly sensitive to lack of water. The tree is planted in one of the worse spots in my yard - hard Virginia Red Clay so that may be a factor. None of my other trees are doing this - some as close as 15 feet away.
Long story short I may try to transplant the Reliance Peach tree to another location or just chop it down and plant something else there.
Fertilizing did not help my tree.
I have a hybrid plum with lots of red leaves, but to me they looked disease from early summer rains. Lots of holes/etc.
That’s similar to what the leaves on my peach/nectarine trees that are on citation root stock look like. where as the ones on lovell look perfect. Does it every year to me, doesn’t seem to hurt anything.
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Last year was a warm year here in Kansas so some trees are losing leaves and some leaves have fall colors. I suspect California has this happen lots of times but we are not normally seeing that kind of thing because we normally are not as warm all winter as last year. I’m not discounting other possibilities but rather throwing another idea out there.
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I don’t see this on my peaches on Citation in California, but my trees are regularly watered (via drip irrigation).
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It definately indicates some type of stress which our case here in Kansas was to much warm weather. It can be insects, excessive rain, disease or whatever. Here is an article about it Early Leaf Color Change In Trees - Reasons For Leaves Changing Color Too Early
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Thanks for the replies folks!
The drought theory is interesting. All the trees around it are fully green and looking good, so unless it’s a very localized problem, I don’t think that’s it.
The weed eater theory is also interesting and concerning. I just weed whacked those trees last week(!) but on closer inspection, there were still weeds coming up right near the trunk and the trunk was undamaged.
The “it happens every year” theory is also interesting. I have a vague, vague, half a memory of an issue with a peach tree in the past, but I don’t really remember what it was!! I didn’t get any fruit at all last year so I don’t have any memories of what it looked like last year at this time.
I gave it a dose of liquid fertilizer and I’ll just see what happens.
Thanks again!
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I have a first-year Gold Dust on citation that looks like that. Not sure why, either. All other trees look great.
I just figure I’ll see how it does next year. Certainly a bit concerning, though!
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