Safe Organic Control of Peach Leaf Curl and other Fungal Diseases

That is so true about respraying so much because of the frequent rains we get around our areas. Almost a daily event.

2 Likes

In the last year I have been reading a lot here about people using copper with oil in the dormant sprays, I myself would not for this very reason you mention, the frequent rains. Nu Film sticker will keep the copper on at least 2 weeks, if not months even if it rains a lot.Great stuff! and it’s made from the pine tree, so a natural chemical. Pinene is the active ingredient. We have bacteria now that can produce this compound. No need to extract it from trees. Cannibis contains pinene too,

2 Likes

I need to find some of that to use. I got tired of spraying every other day last year to try and keep the sprays on the trees. I had peach leaf curl on the same tree because of the frequent rains would wash it off. I have a pond below my trees and I worry about spraying the copper so often.

I often use copper plus oil plus nufilm in my dormant sprays. I never use copper without nufilm. I also use about 4x the usual dose of nufilm, I want that copper glued on. Do watch out you are not clogging your sprayer, lots of nufilm plus copper can really stick things up and a soap and rinse may be required after. In order to minimize copper I only use it when I really need it, which is currently on the stone fruits in the spring. The apples get lime-sulphur in place of copper, and no nufilm is needed for that.

3 Likes

Agree that copper works. A peach tree dropped half it’s leaves from leaf curl. The next year I used Southern Ag copper with Bonide Turbo sticker and only found two leaves with leaf curl. Timing is very important, with spray in fall and late winter before any sign of bud green.

2 Likes

I am beginning to think that it may not be the copper that effectively works in cases where you have lots of rains. It may have got to do with your sealer, the Nufilm. Through time, these fungi would have developed resistance already, like in our case here, copper don’t work as effectively like before. The most important factor, thinking out loud here, maybe is that when you have a coating of Nufilm that is rainproof or have some waterproof properties, it actually has prevented the spores from spreading by trapping them in. If copper has indeed killed them, even if the spores has spread, there would have been no need for Nufilm because the dead spores shouldn’t germinate on the leaves when they break out. The fact that you needed Nufilm to be effective may not be due to copper but due to the Nufilm itself. Just my thoughts on this. One way to test this is to apply Nufilm without copper. Or you can mix Nufilm with my Italian salad dressing recipe sprayed right after hydrogen peroxide to trap the peracetic acid that was formed for a much longer time.

1 Like

An Organic version of Kocide 3000 is scheduled to be released in February.

Its called Kocide 3000 O

1 Like

I thought Kocide is already organic. So what’s the difference now aside from O that makes it organic?

Found best price for Tea Tree Oil 4 oz size at Walmart online for $9.99 with free shipping.

The standard version has never been certified organic as far as I know. No organic label on my Kocide 3000

I’m not sure what changes were made to the product in order to get the organic label.

http://certisusa.com/news/news_02072018_Kocide3000-O_approved.htm

3 Likes

The SDS of Kocide 3000 says 46.9% of the formulation is “Other Proprietary Ingredients.” There are probably dispersants and possibly particle coatings in that 46.9% that wouldn’t be certified as organic. So they probably had to go and reformulate those to make it organic.

2 Likes

46.9 % magic! Must have some new magic for the new formulation…

I bet the new organic label cost a bunch!

I really don’t understand the ORMI process for “Organic”. At at one point Streptomycin had an organic label for Apples.

2 Likes

Streptomycin is actually produced by Stretomyces griseus a bacterium commonly found in soil. So I don’t necessarily think it’s a reach for it to be labeled organic.

1 Like

We might not use the bacteria, It could be synthesized? I don’t know? We do use a lot of bacteria in this way so it is possible.

The rules of whats organic or not are somewhat arbitrary. If its a natural you are just multiplying by some “feeding” its still organic, and I think that is the case with strep. Spinosad you can get in both organic and non-organic versions, the latter being cheaper. I don’t recall how they synthesize spinosad, perhaps they genetically engineered a version of the virus or they modified some other virus. Viruses are complex and I don’t think you can efficiently synthesize them from basic chemical compounds.

1 Like

No you cannot! I didn’t mean the bacteria (Stretomyces griseus), I meant the Steptomycin which is just a molecule. Same thing with Spinosad. Spinosad is a mixture of chemical compounds in the spinosyn family that has a generalized structure consisting of a unique tetracyclic ring system attached to an amino sugar (D-forosamine) and a neutral sugar (tri-Ο-methyl-L-rhamnose)

It comes from Saccharopolyspora spinosa which is a bacterium, not a virus.

So it looks like they have a synthetic non organic spinosad version. I myself favor these most of the time. Like in the case of Pyrethrum from the Chrysanthemum.
It has been used for centuries as an insecticide.
Pyrethroids are synthetic insecticides based on natural pyrethrum (pyrethrins); one common example is permethrin. A common formulation of pyrethrin is in preparations containing the synthetic chemical piperonyl butoxide: this has the effect of enhancing the toxicity to insects and speeding the effects when compared with pyrethrins used alone. These formulations are known as synergized pyrethrins.
Cyhalothrin is an organic compound that is used as a pesticide. It is a pyrethroid, a class of man-made insecticides that mimic the structure and insecticidal properties of the naturally occurring insecticide pyrethrum which comes from the flowers of chrysanthemums. Synthetic pyrethroids, like lambda-cyhalothrin, are often preferred as an active ingredient in insecticides because they remain effective for longer periods of time. It is a colorless solid, although samples can appear beige, with a mild odor. It has a low water solubility and is nonvolatile

lambda-cyhalothrin is the insecticide in Bonide’s Fruit tree and Plant guard which I use mostly for the fungicides that are very effective against brown rot. But the insecticide is effective against PC and is close in structure to the organic Pyrethrum except it is not water soluble, lasts longer and is more effective. I feel it’s fairly safe compared to others. Plant guard is an excellent product for fruit trees.

Most of the above text is from Wiki, I was a Med Tech so familiar with this stuff, but I lack the desire to word it myself, so sorry for some of the redundant statements.
So to sum up, I meant synthesize molecules, which is amazing we can even do this. So in all these cases the product does not contain any bacteria, only their defensive products.

1 Like

Great info. Thank you for posting this.

1 Like

Thanks for posting this. I’ll be trying this on my fruit trees this spring for sure.

I’m in British Columbia, Canada, so this will be interesting to see if your “recipe” works up north.

Anthony

1 Like

So far for 3 years in a row, using my Italian Salad dressing recipe, I have controlled peach leaf curl and other diseases on my nectarines, peaches and roses. The only damage you’ll see are from hailstones. We had several series of rains and hail during the budswell enough to have each Nectarine and Peach Leaves have the curl disease.

11 Likes

@JoeReal, would your “Italian Dressing” recipe be effective on cherry, apple and apricot trees? We had a horrible insect/worm infestation in our cherries last year and hoping to try something organic to resolve it this year.

1 Like