Peach tree deaths and replacements

I forgot to mention is that I didn’t see any borer damage on any of the trees

Late winter for some pruning and after bloom for the rest. I don’t recall any really low temps after I did my first round of pruning.

All plants that go into dormancy do so gradually so are much hardier in mid-winter if generally gradually cooling weather precedes it. Here, the year before never brought winter, except on a single night in Feb., which caused lots of tree death- it was like going from mid-fall to mid-winter over night. We’ve had two straight winters here of high mortality, but for us, the problem both years was in Feb and not Dec.

Trees harden off based on Temps, apparently and not on the angle of the sun.

@alan , @Olpea Maybe not directly related to this topic but how late into spring/summer do you fertilize peach trees? I assume if you fertilize too late the trees will still be growing and not harden when frost hits, potentially damaging the tree?

The first frost date where I live is roughly middle to end of October.

Spud,

If I need to fertilize, I like to do it in the spring, so I can get adequate shoot growth during the season. Some people growers do split applications.

An ideal peach shoot is about 18" long. If a peach tree doesn’t have enough fertility, the tree will end up with a bunch of short shoots by the end of the season. Fertilizing earlier in the season gives ample time to get adequate shoot extension.

I use a lot of remedial wood chips on the peach trees, so they actually get fertilized all season long, as the chips rot down. This isn’t ideal, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, imo.

Last season I fertilized late season with a urea spray. But this wasn’t for growth as much as to offer some added winter hardiness for fruit buds.

Isn’t that based on actual research, indicating the fallacy of the danger of later fertilization and suggesting it’s not only false but that it gets the facts backwards? When is this app done- sept or oct?

In my nursery I use a 90 day at or immediately before first growth- usually early April. I may use a light app of straight urea in early July if the trees seem like they’d benefit. In my soil lots of rain with warm spells will turn that 90 day into 60, it seems.

Peaches rarely suffer death here from cambium kill- they tend to be hardy trees. Varieties with genetic predisposition seem to suffer disproportionately when there is mortality, especially in nursery (very young ) trees.

One time I lost 2 or 3 3-4 year old trees at a single site with an equal number injured when I pruned in mid-Feb. before a sudden drop in temps. The weather had been mild and the cold was not predicted. I also misjudged the nature of the location, believing it was more protected from extreme cold than it turned out to be. It was a short distance from the ocean but the topography blocked it from much benefit.

The species that has most schooled me on the unpredictability of cambium kill is apricots. They are pretty weird where I get much worse kill at milder sites than my own even though they come out of dormancy at almost the same time. Within a day or two.

I lose so many of this species that it is a money loser for me. If I was a pure business man I wouldn’t carry them, but my first fruit tree was an apricot as a boy in S. CA so the first ripe fruit I ever picked from a tree, besides figs, was apricots.

Here, mulch can be a liability for bearing peach trees, IMO. Too much water while fruit is ripening reduces the quality of fruit- of this I’m sure. Nothing provides more available water to trees than humus, so generous apps of wood chips over time seems to drastically escalate water access between rains- you are essentially creating an OM based reservoir- good for growth, bad for brix.

In NY we average close to the same amount of rain every month of the year which makes it difficult to produce the high quality fruit on the particularly wet growing seasons. Western growers consistently produce higher brix fruit if they don’t “over” irrigate.

I now have orchard trees either growing in mowed sod or use woven fabric for weed control. For some trees I’m considering raking out the humus and replacing with sand.

Here, once a tree has grown to a mature size, I stop fertilizing altogether, except for a light application of 10-10-10, when the fruit is golf ball size. This is strictly to help the fruit size up. We don’t fertilize for brix. The sun does that automatically. That why we stress proper pruning, in order to expose as much fruit as we can to sunlight. The sunlight sweetens the fruit, not the fertilizer.
I use pine straw as mulch for water retention and weed control.

By the time fruit is golf ball size N fails to increase size except by creating larger cells, which means more watery fruit, at least in theory. Early fertilizing increases fruit size by encouraging more cell division instead of larger cells, therefore increasing both size and quality. This is all theory established by research and is part of standard information supplied by university guidelines. Results may vary in actual practice, but suggestions established by anecdote only should also be taken with a grain of salt. I try to provide that salt when I can.

That theory might work in NY, but it doesn’t work in my orchard,
nor in any orchard I’ve ever visited. This isn’t anecdotal, it’s actual
field results.

Ray,

I don’t fertilize much either, except when I see trees not putting out adequate shoot growth by the end of the season. Then I start fertilizing those trees to try to get them growing again the next season. For me this sometimes happens when trees are a little older, and when they are cropped really heavy.

Young trees grow well here, but I generally put a little fertilizer on them to get them to size faster.

Last year I did a split application of 30 lbs. of N sprayed on the trees. One in late Sept. and one in the earlier part of Oct. Supposedly, it’s an efficient way to fertilize because the absorption rate is very high. The first app burned about 50% of the foliage off the trees. The second app removed more, but the trees were going into dormancy anyway. I just did half the orchard to see if it had any effect.

I try to be fairly unbiased about the observation results, but I think it helped. The half that I sprayed seemed to have survived winter with a better bloom. It’s hard to compare though because all the varieties were different from the sprayed vs. the unsprayed control.

From university research, it’s supposed to help with winter hardiness of fruit buds.

I didn’t get it done this year yet. Too busy with things and too wet to get in and spray without severely rutting things up. It may not happen this year.

Probably all buds, but usually its only fruit buds they would be concerned with.

So I assume the urea spray is a fertilizer, how does spraying it late season help with bud hardiness? As a fertilizer did it promote late season growth grow being sprayed that late? If it did promote growth late in the season wouldn’t that be considered a negative?

I have started fertilizing my trees in the spring, usually after the leaves break and may go into the middle of July. I usually take two to three handfuls of 10-10-10 and spread around the tree. If the tree does not respond (no growth) I keep doing it until it does,every two to three weeks. I want a young tree to grow a minimum amount each year because some trees have an issue with runting where I grow. This year was really bad, I planted somewhere between 12 to 15 trees and it poured the rain most of the spring, summer and fall. The freshly planted trees finally responded and started to show growth on the last batch of fertilizer in the middle of July. My worry has always been that I am applying the fertilizer to late and the trees will not harden off before the frosts hit which can occur 3rd to 4th week of October. I am allowing roughly 3 months for the tree to harden after the last fertilizer application.

I only feed my newly planted trees diluted urine on a weekly basis,
and they grow like weeds.

Here’s Clemson guideline on fertilizing peaches. This was the complete text.

Spring (bloom to petal fall) Application: Apply 1 cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer per year of tree age to a maximum of 10 cups for mature trees.

Postharvest Application: Apply 1 cup of calcium nitrate per year of tree age to a maximum of 4 cups for mature trees. Do not make the
August application if the crop was lost to a freeze. Do not apply until the harvest of late-season varieties is completed.

In the northeast recommendations are also only spring apps for crop.

I showed you mine, now you show me yours.

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Kevin,
Spraying late season N increases the levels of N in shoots and buds. This increases winter hardiness in those tissues. I’ve forgotten the exact mechanism of how the N increases hardiness, but it’s been documented in studies.

It didn’t promote any growth at all when I sprayed it. If anything, it was the opposite, as it burned many of the remaining leaves off.

Some publications recommend using low biuret urea to avoid leaf burn, vs. the cheap ag. urea. But I use the cheap stuff and just live with the leaf burn. It’s at the end of the season anyway.

But the N maybe needs to pass from leaves to buds- I suppose you’ve considered this, but I’m curious.

I have considered it. I’ve watched the leaf burn and desiccation from N and it takes some time. Additionally it only removes about 1/2 the leaves. From these visuals, I assume the N is being absorbed.

I’m ;pretty sure I’ve also read the cheap urea can be used though it’s been a long time and I can’t remember where.

Hi everyone! Long time . . . no me.
Last spring, I planted 2 peaches - Indian Free and Red Haven. And 2 nectarines - Harko and Mericrest. I lost the Indian Free very early on . . . and now the Red Haven is struggling. However . . . oddly enough, the nectarines look healthy and hearty! I would have expected the peaches to thrive, here in eastern VA and the nectarines go bye bye! Anyone have any ideas as to this surprise?

You may recall - I put in 20+ pomegranates, as well. (And some plums and apples.) All but one of the poms are doing great. But . . . winter has yet to descend - and that will be the big test. I have several cold-hardy varieties of pomegranates - but most will have a tough time, I think. I knew it was a ‘crap-shoot’ when I ordered. This ‘grove’ is definitely an experiment - a fun one.

The weeds are my biggest problem - and very healthy wire grass invasions. I mulched fairly heavily - but it doesn’t seem to help with the weeds much. I’m thinking of cutting some large squares of landscape fabric - to lay down around each young shrub. But, the wire grass will most likely creep under it, anyway.

Meanwhile - I am eating the few pomegranates (20 or so) that my ‘old’ Grenada produced this year. The first ‘drops’ are a bit tart, but I like them that way. A few, more fully developed fruits, I’ve yet to grab off of the shrub. Maybe they will be a little sweeter. I sprayed with copper to try to rid it of this fungus. (see photo) But - it didn’t seem to help. Any suggestions?

On a personal note - just to report to those who remember that I had a terribly rough spring - ‘husband-wise’. We are slowly healing :heavy_heart_exclamation: and are both determined to ‘be working in our orchard together - happily - soon’. A garden or orchard can be a beautiful and powerful symbol AND an active therapy tool - for healing hearts and lives.

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Pom,

I wouldn’t put too much significance in the two peach trees which died, vs. the nectarines which lived. I don’t know what rootstocks the peaches were on, or if it matters in this case. Occasionally I lose some random young peach trees which I can’t readily identify why they died. I just replace them and move on.

I’m really glad to hear you and your mate are healing. It sounds like you have a really great attitude when it comes to restoring this relationship. Going forward with that attitude, I can’t help think the relationship may become better than ever.

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As Olpea suggests, the ones that died may be coincidental, but it also may only be half a coincidence. I think IF is relatively fragile. The others are hardy. Interesting your experience is regionally close to the other in this discussion, suggesting to me more evidence it is weather related in both cases (which I thought from the beginning). Of course, if you are far enough east to be getting ocean air that connection may be coincidental.

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