It sounds like you are planning to spray non bearing trees which is probably a waste of time, energy and chemicals. Shot hole is a bacteria so you would have to add an antibiotic also.
In my experience, there is no reason to treat shot hole. Also no reason to treat els in non bearing trees.
If your trees are actually damaged by these diseases, it’s better to start with resistant varieties than to fight these things for years.
Definitely no reason to spray insecticides on non bearing trees.
You have way too many sprays for peaches. Generally no reason to treat leaf curl either unless you are a commercial orchard trying to get absolute maximum production.
Once bearing you will likely get clean fruit with 3-4 sprays per year.
I put this spray schedule out here, with the hope that you all will poke at it with sharp sticks. So please, by all means poke at it. When the poking is done, I hope to have a good “start here” spray schedule that can be adapted accordingly to pest and disease pressures. Please don’t think your going to make me sour by commenting, because it won’t happen.
Thank You all for commenting so far. You’ve taught me far more than I thought I would learn already
Read Alan’s spray guide. This is probably the best start here spray guide on the internet.
Don’t spray non bearing fruit trees.
Usually you don’t need to spray peaches more than 3 times
Peach leaf curl is mostly cosmetic. Some leaves curl, fall off and the tree grows new leaves. Only matters to commercial growers that need optimal production per acre. Peach leaf curl will very rarely harm a tree.
I hope you are correct this is why I added (as needed) to the cover sprays. I believe I’ll need to have flexibility for pest and disease pressures because no two growing seasons will ever be the same.
I will try and search for Alan’s spray guide on the internet. But if you have a link it would be most helpful.
Thanks for all the sound advise, I appreciate you.
One the top left corner of a page, there are a few symbols. Look for the symbol of a 3 short line.
Click on the symbol, it will show all the categories of this forum
Click on the word, Categories
Scroll down to Guides.
All kinds of guides including spray guides are there.
Here’s Alan’s update version
Like I said, spraying depend on pest pressure. Where I am, I would be lucky if I could get away with 5 spray. Mostly more than that to battle diseases and pest before, during and after bloom.
Yes, peaches and nectarines. I am not the only one on the east coast who need to spray peaches and nectarines more than 3 spray a year to get good crop. I am not talking about 90 or 100% good crop. If I can get 70-80% of peaches with no worm or brown rot, I am happy.
It’s just the opposite here in 6B southern Illinois. I’m not the only one in my neck of the woods who equates young peach and appricots trees to children. It seems as though they have to catch everything before the build immunity even though I have planted mostly resistant varieties. One thing we don’t have is leaf curl, where as it seems to be common in other parts of the country.
Apples / pears do well on their own here but peaches and appricots is a battle to keep them alive while young. if peach tree borers don’t take them out first.
Trust me I would really like to say I don’t spray young non-bearing peach trees. But if I didn’t spray them, I honestly believe they wouldn’t come back after winter.
I live in a ag area called the heartland where things just grow crazy fast. With that comes fungus and insects and lots of them.
Just the opposite here. Apples grow well here with not much care. We have apple orchards all over the state. Pears are OK. I was doing with pears for 10+ years but this year is difficult. Sooty blotch and other fungal issues have defoliate leaves and stunted fruit.
I don’t recall any large peach orchards around here . There is a small peach orchard as part of a big apple farm near me. It has no peaches this year because of Feb freeze. I guess if growing peaches is easy like apples, there would be more peach orchards around but there is not.
Just 6 at the moment. I’m trying different varieties to see which will do well and which won’t. Once I figure that out and how to care for them (spray schedule). I will put in 2x 330 foot production rows. I would like an early cling and a later free for the production rows.
Currently I have:
2 Rich May
1 Red Haven
1 Contender
1 Reliance
1 Loring
The two rich may my wife purchased from rural king I hope the are truly are rich may (they were tagged Flavorich)
I have 2 rich mays one of which produced for the first time this year. It was awesome but totally cling stone. Fine with me as I don’t mind eating them off the pit, but no good for processing, fruit salad etc.
The flavor was definitely first rate.
I highly recommend some of the new peaches from Rutgers University. I have Tiana and Selena.
They are more disease resistant I think.
Tiana has not produced for me but Selena is unreal. Selena is by far the finest textured and most flavorful peach I have eaten to date.
It sounds like you are on your way. I think you might benefit by learning how to monitor for pests.
I am not good at it yet but seems like it could save you a lot of sprays.
I’ll look into those varieties thanks for mentioning them I have hope for the rich mays, they grew a lot this year. I hope they flower this spring, they should.
Last year not knowing any better… I fertilized with nitrogen after July 15, actually up untill leaf fall. July 15 is our cut off date for fertilization of peaches and appricots. The tips didn’t have time to harden before winter set in and every tip on every branch big or small died on all the peach and appricots I had planted. I had to prune everyone of them back a good 6 inches into green wood.
I donget bug reports from the “country grape vine” it’s faster than the internet. I also watch the guninees they were having a field day in the orchard today, best bug catching critters I know, even better than my turkeys. But you are right again I should learn about monitoring for pests something to study up on this winter.
this is why I added (as needed) to the cover sprays. I believe I’ll need to have flexibility for pest and disease pressures because no two growing seasons will ever be the same.