Just curious on where you come down on the whole “keep it clean” thing. I know its completely blasphemous to say anything other than how important clean orchard culture is since almost everything says its critical. And I do understand that spores overwinter in things like previously affected twigs, mummified fruits, and so on and how it can jump up/splash up and spread in spring from any organic material left behind the previous fall. But I’ll go ahead and say that while I try to keep a pretty clean orchard, I don’t get every mummy, I certainly don’t get every dead branch tip removed, and if I do have some brown rot that causes fruit to fall, I don’t always get them all up. Yet if I keep my spray regiment very tight, I’ve had plenty of trees with some dead fruit and other organic matter in and under them and still controlled brown rot 100%. With all my trees its almost impossible to police them as well as many sources say I should, and I’d think you had the same problem. Is that true? Of course we both can agree than good clean culture is best and helps, but I’m not sure its quite as critical as many would have us believe. What do you think?
Thank you!! Did not realize this about Captan but was planning on using it in a combo spray as thecityman suggested. I will look into propiconazole… rotating these on the spray schedule will be my best bet, I’m guessing.
Y’all are SO generous with your ideas and expertise. I appreciate it very much!
I would love to hear from other growers on their experience. How do the commercial orchards deal with this? What a nightmare.
BTW, my dad was furiously against my planting these peach trees. He warned me about dangerous peach snakes.
Apparently, where he grew up there was an orchard where he saw a fair number of venomous snakes, and, being a kid, assumed they were there to eat the peaches. 
I about died laughing. Pretty sure they were there to eat the rodents that fed on the peaches on the ground…
He agreed, after some thought, but is still leery of my trees…
Hi Cityman.
I think that’s a really good question. And you’re right that it’s sort of taboo to say otherwise. Because the general current societal mood is that any chemical sprays are bad, etc. university guidelines always make a major point about cultural methods.
Sometimes cultural methods make no difference. For instance picking off all the leaves which are deformed from leaf curl and burning/burying them isn’t going to make much of a difference, imo.
There are some people who have claimed success doing so, but the data point probably doesn’t fall outside the expected random standard deviation. In other words, any success enjoyed from their effort was probably just luck, since the fungus is fairly ubiquitous.
That said, I think picking up drops and disposing them has merit for commercial orchards, imo. I doubt it has a whole lot of merit for home orchards. The reason is that there can be so many drops in a commercial orchard, the floors stink with rotted fruit. Please don’t ask me how I know this 
Seriously though, we’ve had times when the orchard floor was covered in rotted fruit and it is during those times (with rain) that we’ve had more issues with rot and SWD. If we can pick the floor up, that can help considerably.
I’ve seen littered orchard floors on other commercial orchards as well, so we aren’t the only ones who sometimes let this happen.
The problem is the biggest labor requirements come all at the same time. In other words, the crop must be picked and sold (retailed in my case). Weeds are growing like mad during this time, so they must be mowed, and sprayed. Peach trees require summer pruning. There is just a million things to do. So you have to prioritize what gets done. Every single day in the summertime I get up and make a mental note to myself of things which must be done today. Those are typically the only things which get done that day. Picking up drops is not at the top of the list.
It takes about an hour to pick up drops if they have been picked up the day before. It takes 3 hrs. or more if it gets away from us. But it does help with rot and SWD.
Squishing them helps some because they break down in the sun faster. It helps least with SWD because they will lay eggs in squished fruit. It helps some with brown rot because squished peaches dry up pretty fast in the hot sun.
That is funny. I’ve never seen a snake in the trees in my orchard. I’ve seen them on the ground, in tall grass, but not in the trees. Rodents don’t live in peach trees, so I suspect there were some birds making nests the trees your father saw. The snakes were probably after the nesting birds.
Bonide sells it as Infuse concentrate. I use that and Bonide’s Fruit Tree and Plant Guard, although this product has an insecticide too, and many don’t want that but I have problems with PC, so I need it. Rotating these two products with one or two sprays of Captan early in the season as it is very effective against blossom blight which is also caused by the brown rot fungus, usually very early on. If I’m late with a spray, or miss a spray I get some brown rot. So I try and overlap them a few days to make sure fruit is protected. Plant Guard has one of the most effective brown rot controls (for home use), and is a completely different mode of action then Infuse. You’re attacking brown rot on two fronts. Works fantastic. Also it is best these be delivered in an acidic solution. Add vinegar to tap water before adding pesticides. Or rainwater, or other acids if you prefer. I usually have sulfuric acid on hand (battery acid, new of course, not from batteries, never use used acid). I sometimes use that instead, but rarely. I use it to scarify seeds, or for my blueberries, if out of rainwater. Which usually does not happen. I don’t use vinegar with blueberries as it is an organic acid that breaks down and releases calcium back into the ground, Sulfuric acid takes carbonates and turns them into gypsum which is neutral, so pH does not rise back up like it will with vinegar (acetic acid) or citric acid. Vinegar stays acidic long enough to use with sprays.
Charts exist on the net that go over what pH pesticides work best at, I lost the links I had. Some work better at neutral or high. Best to research this for the pesticides you use. Like Malathion in pH of 7 works for an hour, at pH of 5 it will kill insects on contact for 30 hours. PH really really matters!
Wow! I had no idea. I made notes from your post and will do some research. Thanks SO much!
Thanks for that info. It’s fascinating to know how the bigger orchards handle drops. I had never considered the labor hours… all I do know is that I never take produce for granted anymore. I know how hard it is to get a good crop of nearly anything.
Also–never considered bird nests! Another layer of revelation about those dreaded peach snakes.
I brown bag grapes to avoid spraying. I assume the same could be done with peaches. Brown rot is terrible here. The sandwich bag is the only way I’ve gotten fruit from my vines.
https://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/diseases/clemsonfruitbags.html
Do you use paper sandwich bags?
People have tried clemson bags for peaches. If interested, you can do a search on this forum. A lot of discussion about bagging fruits on the forum. Generally speaking bags promote rot in a lot of cases because of the extra moisture in the bag.
Everyone dreams of growing fruit including peaches without spraying. For people in regions with high humidity, that is very difficult task to achieve.
Even bagging, you need to spray a combo of insecticide and fungicide a couple of times before bagging.
Bagging has been discussed many times. This is one of the threads.
I have honeybees and don’t spray. Bagging is my only option. Sprays have always resulted in massive hive loss. I use paper sandwich bags for grapes and staple them closed. I got the idea from EdibleLandscaping which is somewhat close to me. It’s worked great for grapes. I bought a couple of peaches this year and will try this method in the future. But, I don’t have any experience with peaches to recommend it. Video below of EdibleLandscaping with bagged grapes.
Everything I stated well almost everything was learned here.
Here is one article that has a chart. Each chart I have seen is a little different but agree in general. More comprehensive charts are out there, I don’t have them book marked.
web version of the same article and chart.
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/pi193
With copper or sulfur use tap water only! No acids.
Thanks! That chart at the end of the article was helpful.
I hate to hear about hive loss. I don’t have any hives near me, but I do try to use organic sprays and I never spray during the day or when I see pollinators out. But… Do you think spraying in the morning versus the evening is safer for the bees? I would guess evening, but I don’t know. I just know I need the bees!
One question about Infuse… the bottle says no more than 4 sprays in a season, 21 days apart each. If I started now and spaced the sprays out, I would have to stop by May. With the peaches ripening through the end of June, would I just watch for brown rot and treat if it breaks through here or there, using a different fungicide?
Not sure why there is a four-spray limit.
I rotate sprays. I spray Infuse and then 18-20 days later spray Plant Guard. So don’t use both at once, rotate and you can cover the season, I suggest keeping a log of sprays. Here is one of mine.
2018 03 17 Sprayed Kocide copper 2tbsp/gallon with Nu Film 17 sticker.
2018 04 22 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 4 sprays left (Nu Film is used in all applications)
2018 05 18 Infuse (2tbs) 3 sprays left, and Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 2 sprays left
2018 05 24 first PC strikes (plum curculio beetle)
2018 05 24 Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs) extra for trees because of bad PC. need to find something else.
2018 05 29 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 3 sprays left
2018 06 06 Fruit Tree Spray (2.5 tbs) 21 days 1 spray left.
2018 06 14 Infuse (2tbs) 2 sprays left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)
2018 06 28 Plant Guard (4tbs) can be used every 14 days 2 sprays left
2018 07 15 Infuse (2tbs) 1 spray left, Ortho Flower, fruit, and vegetable (3 tbs)
For dormant protection
2018 11 23 Lime-sulfur with oil
Apply 4 fl. oz. lime-sulfur plus 1 1/4 fl
. oz. dormant spray oil per gallon of water.
Most years I can quit spraying by mid-July. Last year though I needed to spray longer from heavy rains. The whole season. My last spray was in September. I have stone fruit ripening until October. Fall Fiesta pluot, Indian Free Peach, and Flavor Finale.
Before my neighbor died, he would spray his boxwoods and within a few days my hives would die. After he died, I haven’t had any significant hive loses. Honeybees have a 3 mile forage radius. I don’t think spray times matter.
Bee keeping is illegal in my suburban city Sterling Heights. Although my yard has hundreds of bees most of the season. I love it. It does limit when I can spray. I get more bees and beneficial insects every year. Unfortunately none help with brown rot except man made fungicides. It would be great to come up with a more natural solution. Although some man made pesticides are safer than many organic solutions. Shorter half lives is the biggest benefit. Copper is forever.