I agree. Growing peaches under cover in coastal Pacific Northwest is a foolsafe solution to PLC. Amazing that even a pinhole in plastic that lets rain drip onto leaves will cause leaves to curl. For large uncovered inground trees, homemade Bordeaux solution ( Bonnide copper fungicide + hydrated lime + Nufilm), sprayed 5 times from Thanksgiving to March 15th is effective …but still results in 5-10% PLC depending on the year’s rainfall.
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The guy that use to run the Washington State University’s extension center,said one time,that if someone could invent a portable protective shield against PLC,they could make a lot of money.
Hi Joe,
Your recipe seems very interesting. I have several questions if you can assist:
- Have you tried this for a series of growing seasons to know it works consistently?
- For peach and nectarine varieties that are not resistant, does it work as well?
Please advise.
Dennis
Kent, wa
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Dennis, Joe is very active on Facebook but hasn’t been here for a while (before I showed up). @scottfsmith or others who have tried it out may be more helpful.
I appreciate you reviving the thread, I’ll add this to my tool box if I decide to try stone fruits.
I’ve yet to see any organic methods work. If they did work everyone on the forum would know about it.
Copper works very well if sprayed at the recommended time.
I use that as well, but is it really organic? It has other chemicals in it.
I’m not an expert on what is or isn’t legally an organic spray. OMRI considers some copper products organic. Some could argue it’s not.
Most coppers are OMRI organic… but that doesn’t mean they are any better than synthetics. I think the “safe” in the original post title here might have meant non-copper. I have used copper successfully on PLC in past years when I had it badly.
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For anyone who has used this spray recipe: Would it replace a dormant oil spray?
A friend of mine has pear blister mites, and I was researching oil sprays and this one came up amongst many recipes. I didn’t know which one to choose! I thought that maybe this recipe would be more worthwhile than a standard recipe (like the cornell recipes) since the tea tree and neem have anti-fungal properties, in addition to the neem oil being, well, an oil, that could hopefully smother the little mites.
Does anyone with more experience than me have any thoughts or experience with this? If this can replace a dormant oil spray, would now-ish be a good time to spray?
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Can’t find the full paper and I have not tried yet but here is this.
https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/agricultural-science-and-innovation/agriculture-and-agri-food-research-centres-and-collections/pest-management-centre/pesticide-risk-reduction-pest-management-centre/integrated-pest-management-projects/biocontrol-leaf-curl-peach-and-mummy-berry-lowbush
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Hi,
How have your plastic covers worked out on your peaches? Rain covers have been extensively studied in cherries (to prevent cracking and disease). We have 3 cherries and was thinking of making a rain cover for them from polyethylene and using a PVC cage similar to this, so I am curious how your covers have been doing.
It would be similar to what this guy did.
Rain covers work great for PLC. But you have to cover top and partway down sides. Also you need curved top with Solexx or something rigid for drainage… Even a pinhole in plastic cover will mean PLC directly under hole-I’ve had that happen!
Hi,
They’ve worked perfectly. Haven’t sprayed since. Tried to convince my father to do the same but he seems to be happier using sprays. As noted, any small hole will create an opportunity for the spores to be splashed onto emerging leaves, but the problem only occurs in a small area under the hole, so it’s no real problem to the tree and makes it easy to find the hole!
I have only covered the dwarf trees but the one that is too big to cover is a Black Boy Peach. They seem to be fairly resistant to leaf curl anyway so I don’t bother spraying that one. It will be interesting to see if it confers any resistance to the apricot and nectarine I grafted onto it. I’m not banking on it but we’ll see
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Those aren’t solid plastic, right? They have to have some holes in them, I would think. If not the sun would burn up the leaves and fruit. At least where I live it would. Nice picture though.
awesome - I will try in the spring and let you know. If you have any tips or could help me avoid pitfalls, please let me know. Thanks
Great 
Cover the tree before Spring. You need to ensure no water hits the emerging leaves as that’s when they are vulnerable.
I hope it goes as well for you as it has for me
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Nice - thanks
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@Evenfall The paper you have linked is a good one. I think Serenade has the potential, however the manufacturer Bayer has stopped making Serenade Max which has 14.6% of active ingredient. What we can buy now is Serenade ASO which has 1.34% of active ingredient. In the link they have used double the rate of Serenade Max to achieve control similar to traditional methods. This means we have to use 20 times more of Serenade ASO.
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@scottfsmith between two of this compounds Copper and Lime-Sulphur which one is “relatively” safe longterm to protect health of the soil.
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