Single white peach tree rehab

So I have a single white peach tree in my back yard which I generally treat as a beautiful flowering landscape tree. While it is loaded every year with peaches we never get any unless it is a very dry year due to brown rot. Even when we do get a few, many have worms in the fruit. So the tree is really pretty big (maybe 20’ by 15’ wide) and much of the bark looks to be scaly and burnt. I would like to try to set myself up to maybe get better fruit from it in future years and I think that starts with pruning out the infected part of tree. Does this literally mean cutting the tree completely back to like three stubs? If so, is that only in the winter? I am really a novice at this so any help or reference sites would be appreciated. I would prefer to minimize my spraying but am not above a few applications to get back ahead of the problem. I should also note that the dogs share the yard with the tree. Thanks a bunch for this resource. One of my favorite lurk sites.

Eric,
Where do you live? Knowing where you live will help give you a more realistic expectation re pests and diseases.

I would not cut a peach down to stump. It may not respond positively the way apple, pear or cheery does. Fighting diseaees and pests with spraying will work. You may need to spray more than you expect to get good fruit.

Sorry, I live in Loudoun County, VA. Like zone 7a.

Well, I was thinking you must be on the east coast with that much pest and disease pressure!!!

The brown rot is easier to control with synthetic. Bonide has a product called Bonide Infuse. That should work. Read the label and follow it re. when to spray and how often.

Some of us use another product called Indar but you need someone to split it with a few others as it comes in a gallon size and costly. Also, if you have only one peach tree. you don’t need to invest that much money.

For pests, major pests for peaches are plum curcuilo, Oriental Fruit Moths, coddling moths and stink bugs. One organic approach is deterrence by using Surround, kaolin clay, spray.
Read this : First time using surround.

There are chemicals that are more effective. I do not use it so others who use it can give you advice.
@speedster1 is in Virginia. @scottfsmith is in Maryland. There are several who are in mid Atlantic states who could give you advice.

You might look at a couple guides we have on sprays…

Synthetics one:

Low-impact one:

I wrote the latter one and it works reasonably well for me in Maryland.

Thank you. I will read.