Unripe peaches oozing clear dot of liquid without bite marks, in most cases, I have investigated, I didn’t find any signs of worms inside. But close to ripe stage peaches, especially nectarines, if oozing liquid, mostly because of worms
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I have clear ooze also, I can see holes bored into the peaches under the ooze. Some type of worm I think.
Peach borers attack the wood/roots at the base of the tree and don’t bother the fruit, so far as I’ve seen.
If you cut open the peach and find the worm and take a picture of it, someone on this forum can identify it and what is needed to control it.
I also have had a serious problem with my peaches and plums being damaged by this. The fruit was off to a great start, then slowly I started noticing this oozing of a clear hard gel, and in the end every fruit fell off the tree and I got none. This damage was done on older established trees. In another part of my property I planted a new young peach tree, and let two or three peaches on it grow to maturity. None of the peaches on this young tree got damaged at all. So, I don’t know what it is, we have had a lot of stink bugs in the last two years, so I thought it could be that. But why would they only be on the older estabilshed trees and not on the new younger tree since stink bugs fly around.
I don’t know what is causing it, but I am very motivated to find out since I don’t want the same problem on all my newer trees that I am planting and want to plant. I live in Kentucky, near Lexington, and another friend of mine here showed me that she had the same issue on her tree. I asked my extension agent, and he seemed to think it was a weakness and slitting in the peach, but that doesn’t make sense to me. Why again only on the old established tree, and not on the new young tree.
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The fruits that fell off, was the clear sap the only damage? You didn’t have any problem with moths? In my own (limited) experience peaches that are oozing the sap don’t fall off just because of that. They fall off usually because they have a worm in them.
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Welcome John!
I have seen two primary causes of damage to young peach fruits. The first (and most likely) is some sort of insect larva like Oriental Fruit Moth or Plum Curculio. To verify, split open a young fruit that is oozing sap and try to find the worm:
There are a lot of posts on this forum about how to control these insects. Use the search function to read up on them.
The second (and much less likely) cause could be over watering resulting in fractured pits. This can cause sudden rapid growth putting more stress on the pit, or the flesh than it can handle. I have seen this on peaches, but not on plums:
Hopefully, this helps a little. Without additional information, I would put my money on the insects and adopt one of the good spray routines recommended on this forum.
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Thank you for the warm welcome and information! I am very glad to have found you all!
I plan to plant a lot of fruit bearing trees, and know that without a good support group like this it can turn out to be just a lot of frustration and failure.
John in Kentucky
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I didn’t look closely enough to see if there were worms last season. I will take a closer look for worms this year, but will apply some kind of a good spray routine so as to avoid the same problem as last year.
I also planted some apple trees, pears, and cherries last season, as well as one Apricot, and two asian persimons.
I have been told that here in kentucky that cherries and pears do quite well, but there are a lot of problems and things after the apples. Very much open to any advice there that you all can give me.
John in Kentucky
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