Leaf Curl in Peach Trees: what it is and how to mitigate it

Today we got our first report of active peach leaf curl showing symptoms.

Image from Gardenia.net

Peach varieties may be described as “resistant” to peach leaf curl.  But, resistance does not equal immunity, so you may have to deal with this disease no matter which peach variety you purchase.

If only a few leaves on your plant are infected you can pluck them (and put them in the trash instead of your compost pile). This will reduce the potential for the disease to spread to next year’s foliage. If damage is wide spread, or if you don’t get to it, you can just ignore the damaged leaves as control for this disease should really start in the fall. 

To control/limit next year’s infection, make three applications between mid-November and mid-February (after leaf drop) of a copper (example: Bonide Captain Jack’s Copper fungicide) or Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (example: Monterey Complete Disease Control) based fungicide.   Be sure to saturate the bark and buds of the plant to the point of drip/runoff . If the label allows it, adding a small amount of horticultural oil (1% of the mix) to copper based fungicides will improve control. Do not over apply copper fungicides as repeated applications (over several years) can cause copper levels in soil to accumulate to toxic levels.