Last year, at the base of my dwarf peach tree, I had this half dollar sized looking split like with a large jelly like substance on it, I assumed was sap protecting the break in the bark. My tree has had ants that look like they patrol the leaves especially on the ends of the branches, are they harmfull/ I saw a program on TV where they sometimes force aphids to produce a sweet liquid but the aphids suck all the harder on the plant to replenish themselves... It started out good this year with lots of flowers and leaves, but the leaves turned yellow and 90% have fallen off. Some have no leaves at all. I haven't sprayed anything...any ideas? A local farmer said he thinks mice are eating the roots. I know we have lots of grubs in the area though...It still has these punny little fruits on it. Im thinking to pull them off to let the tree conserve it's strength and heal. This year I saw another sore on it with the jelly like substance again just under a fork in a branch. Is this just sun scalding I hear about?

 

When aphids move in on a plant, ants are sure to follow. The aphids produce a sweet residue called honeydew as a by-product of their feeding activity. The ants discover the aphids and milk them, transferring the honeydew to the nest for the other ants. The ants also protect the aphids from predators. This creates a symbiotic relationship of a sorts. You can knock the aphids off of the plants with a spray of water, but the ants will put them back.

I am not an expert with fruit trees. The sap you see may well be the result of an injury to the tree from mower or string trimmer.

The first year I had my peach trees, one of them was getting the leaves eaten off of it, but I could not find a pest. My response was to feed and water the tree quite regularly, figuring that the tree could fight off the pest if it had enough nutrition and water. The tree started putting out more leaves, and whatever was eating the leaves quit. Maybe it moved to the next stage of its life, or the tree produced something it could not tolerate in the leaves. The tree recovered fully, and looks wonderful this year with no problems. The late frost killed the fruit, so I have not dealt with that this year.

The other peach tree lives in a mulch lagoon, so it has all the water in the world all the time. It was not affected by whatever attacked the first peach.

I would pull the fruit and let the tree focus on recuperation.

There are borers that attack peaches and plums, but they work on the new branches, not on the trunks.

Look on the leaves for pests. Aphids are small and greenish in color. If you find a pest, let us know, then we all will have more to work with.

Hope this helps.

 

Like you I too looked for the aphids and found nothing but they seem to patrol the tree like crazy but no bugs that I could see...I think Ill have to check the PH and pluck the fruit and try mega watering...I have extremely sandy soil though....

 

Is the base of the tree mulched? Mulching helps retard water evaporation. 2 inches of rotted sawdust, or compost, or shredded dead leaves would help. It might not hurt to throw a dash of Miracle Grow on the base every couple of weeks to give it a fresh shot to help it regrow the leaves.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi hvac01453

Of all the Stone Fruit we grow, it is the Peach & Nectarines that seem so unfair to grow. The link below is only one of many things that can cause repair sap to ooze out. This type of tree will have a full crop this season & die the next winter. Seems unfair but you can do some things to help the tree live longer.

http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/CASDEPT/.../cytospor.html

I like Apples, Asian Pears, & all of the stone fruits. You have to expect these Trees to suffer from Fungus & borers. So no matter how well the Peach Tree grows you must be diligent & use Dormant oil spray & a Lime & Sulfer spray in the early Spring. A Must.

Every Spring dig back around the first 3 inches of the trunk where it enters the ground. Look for holes pluged with repair sap, take a 6 inch piece of coat hanger & prod the holes to kill the borers.

Replug the holes with Tree wound dressing & replace the soil. If this sounds like preventive maintance, it is the only way to have our trees longer.

We plan on growing as many types of Stone Fruit as we can, & like just like, the 1st 200 foot row of Red Raspberries that is now 4 years old.

We will be replacing that row next season, because If you see the 4 year olds next to the 2, 200 foot rows of 3 year olds, it's real clear their prime is over. Since the book says Red Raspberries are good for 5 to 7 years, & ours are played out at 5 years. We will have Peach & other Stone Fruit planted near the others we will cut out. That could be 8 or 10 years then we cut & let the new tree take over.

With Stone fruit unlike Apples, we are not going to get an old tree. That is not a good enough reason not to grow them, we sell them also. What I have learned, is we can protect our Peaches & dig out our the borers, out each year. I am using a new product called Surround, & so far the leaves & bark look real good to early to tell about Borers yet.

As for Feeding a Tree. Both the way you water and feed can make a big difference in their health. If it's dry, water long and deep once a week. Feed by using 3 cups of 5-10-15 in late winter, unless you want to use Organic food. Get the 3/8ths drill (Planting Auger) by Hound Dog tools. Drill a hole no less than 12 to14 inches every 3 feet around the Trees drip line, 3 cups 5-10-15 in bottom, cover & toss a little grass seed on filled hole.

We have both STD & Semi Dwarf Trees all started as Bare root Trees from Ca. The holes we dug were 6 feet across & 5 foot deep, then we filled them back in with a base of Mushroom Compost, enriched with. Many kinds of Organic Suplements, some that will feed for 10+ years.

The whole Idea with Trees is to get the roots to grow deep, after the food. Water mixed plant foods work best, when sprayed on the leaves in the very early Morn twice a Month. Using this type of readily available plant food on the soil will encourage shallow roots in trees & that's not good.

We used 1 soaker ring around every Tree, I made it up by using Ts at each tree, tied together with bulk 1/2 inch garden hose. All 4 mother hoses are hooked up to a water source each line has it's own sut off valve & end cap for flushing the hose out.

We put the soaker ring down & used 6 layers of porus ground cloth all cut round & comming out 6 " farther than the 6 foot wide hole.

To finish we used 1/4" to 3/8" bright white Limestone 5" deep. It's a nice watering set up, that saved our new trees during the last 4 years, when the drought killed many other, young Fruit trees in our area.

Use Stone Fruit on your Google search, & you will find some real good advice on what you must do to help keep your tree happy & healthy. Be careful, to much water even in sandy soil is just a Fungus waiting to happen with a peach tree.

 

do you think that the grubex will keep the insects out of the roots? What about Diazinon, Malithion, Captan or Sevin(Carbaryl)? How about Benemyl for a fungicide????

 

hvac01453 I am still researching the Questions. Please give me some time & I will find the answers.

One thing that keeps coming up, is the general health of the tree. I am getting the idea this may be tied to the imune system.

It is the loss of the leaves, that has me more concerned than anything else. That is not a good sign, unless it is regrowing it's leaves.

 

hvac01453

I found this study that follows along the same thinking, as Organic Growers. You can't spray a bug that has bored it's way to safety with any toxin.

Read this carefuly, & it may be if you find that the borers have girdled the tree, just a few inches underground. The tree is dead & will have to be burned. This is worst case, & is not fair, but prevention & borer hand removal, is all any grower can do.


http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/TRA...treeborer.html

Let us know what you find out when you dig and explore, the trunk just below the soil. Good Luck.

 

Why is it my friut trees are the only thing getting attacked? Why not the oak and maples or pines? I only have three trees. A Mac that started out great but the partner tree (Courtland) didn't bloom this year at all....I think mainly due to the weirds late frosts we were having and the mac leaves turned yellow along with the blossoms and looked horrible even to date... But I saw the other day some of the Mac leaves are starting to regrow new ones. Should I strip off the dryed yellow leaves...
Oh, all three are dwarf trees. The peach did this last year too but not as badly, and of course all the fruit dropped off. I'm gonna dig up at the root this weekend when I get home from work and it cools off a bit into the 80's. Its been a real dry spell since mid June this year. About a month without rain. The Courtland has black spot...I think no fruit trees can survive without massive consistant spraying now days. When I was a kid we had an apple tree that we did nothing to, and it rained apples every year and never had the black spot disease...but it was a full size tree...never pruned except the branches we snapped off for sword fights...
It seems the ignored tree sometimes does best. Are the full size trees better resistant to disease and infestation? The old tree I told you about, was 30 feet across, and they chopped it down because it rained apples in the neighbors yard..It must have been 12 inches across the trunk...
PS your pictures look like a professional farm...

 

no fruit trees can survive without massive consistant spraying now days.

That's right a Pest Management Program is a must. My Wife & I have been growing on someones elses Farm since 1972. Only in the last few years, have we felt with the payments set up to buy this Farm. We now could grow Fruits & all those things we never could do before, on someone elses rented land.

I will post sone Pics when I get them developed, of my trees & they are white as baby powder. A new product call Surround is the only thing Organic or no that will control Plum Curculio. It is a special Clay that helps the Tree to stay cooler, & bugs don't like to walk on it.

We grow fruit Trees know as Antique or Heirloom, the ones that grew Hundreds of years ago. Here they are still here today, & some have resistance to this or that bug or Blight.

Integrated Pest Management is what is needed for Gardeners not just Farmers.

Before we set our first plant out, we started our Pest Management planing. Dormant sprays for bug eggs & fungus spores. Petal fall is when the ovaries have been fertlized & forming.

There was a time a few decades back that some Kids went to live in the Country. The mistook Organic Gardening for a do nothing approach, thinking that nature would take care of things.

I can assure you that if our produce is not large pretty & spotless people who yell save the Earth the loudest, won't buy it. So with natural Pesticides & a host of other natural products, we protect our plants from Pest & Disease.

If you have been reading the links, you can see by now that just a colder Winter, can do all sorts of things to Stone fruit. It is going to be the hardest of Trees we have planted, to keep healthy and alive.

Just 2 years ago we would go out at night with pails of Lime, & hand pick 4 to 8 inch lepord slugs by the hundreds. Today a Kid & Pet safe Slug killer (Sluggo) let's us sprinkle, and get some sleep. A type of oil spray Neem oil, that is as effecive on Aphids as many Toxics, that have a 50 year half life.

Before we get to far. I thought with 30 years of working as a Farmer + the other jobs that paid the bills. I thought that as we all watch our own Farmers sending their kids to Collage, & saying don't follow in my foot steps. Where will you & I buy our Fruit & Vegetables from, when the US drops Produce growing?

We will have to grow our own, before taking a chance on the safety of overseas imports. Remember the Raspberries from Mexico that made so many sick?

The best way it was told to be by an old Farmer. "People took Plants & Animals from the wild side of Nature". Why should we be surprised we have to work so hard to protect these weak creations? Cows need a Man to kill the Wolf & bear, so he can have Milk at his convience. A Wild Buffalo does not need Mans help from Wolves, but it will be darn hard geting milk from those wild Bufalos.

The whole point is like asking. Why do the wild weeds do so well in my Garden? Reguardless of what toxins you choose to treat your plants with. I would suggest you study the times when this or that bug comes out. How often to spray & what types of traps you can use.

All trees have something that will Bug them, like Oak Gals or the Tree will develop a rotten center. Where you buy your trees can make a big difference, we paid 25 to 32 dollars for bare root Trees & yet we could have paid as little as 10 dollars @ Lowe's. Not the same types of course.

I have gone out to look at trees bought at big Discount stores, the guy says we just planted it last week & it looks dead. In many cases they are dead, shocked or sick from shipping or storage.

If the leaves come back this season, it could have been cold weather in Spring or peach tree leaf curl. Yes clean up everything dead or sick up + everything under the trees burn it all up.

How much full light does this tree get a day? What is your soil Ph read around the tree? You can buy electric Ph meters for around $12.00 What did you enrich the planting hole with?

 

I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you. Your Dwarf Peach is riddled with Borers.

From the Pics I could see, that if I were to dig down around the trunk, I would find that the Borers have girdled the tree. This is a death sentence for a stone fruit Tree.

There is very little one can do to prevent this, in all of the Stone Fruits. I will be diging down around the trunks in late Winter/Early Spring, finding the holes & inserting a prod to kill the Borers in all of my trees.

I will then seal the holes with Tree wound sealer, a tar like substance, used to seal off any secondary infections. One day in the future I to, will watch my Peaches, Cherrys & Plums flower set fruit and die.

It has nothing to do with size of tree. Since we use & sell the fruit, all we can do is plant a new tree, a few years before the older trees die, so we can have fruit without interuption.

We knew this going in, & had to accept this fact of growing Stone fruit. Apples are great & so are pears, but everyone loves the stone fruits & so do I.

You have enough room to grow the Semi Dwarf Peaches, & the increased yield, will make it worth your while.

Next time use 3 or 4 sheets of landscaping cloth, the porus kind & cover with 3 to 4 inches of 3/8ths limestone. Looks good & is 100 percent weed free.

Some growers believe, the cleaner you can keep it around the tree the less bugs in general, will bother the Trees.

I would remove the tree, in Fall & burn everything you can of the old tree.

I'm sorry, but I am 99.9 percent sure that it is Borers, & there is nothing you can do now.

 

I dug up around the base of the tree and found no evidence of any holes that I could see in the root ball or the tap roots. I dug around the apples as well looking for the same....maybe I missed them? I did find a few grubs,,,a neighbor thought it was root rot since the weeds grow so good there.. I enriched the soil when I planted them with sphagnam peat moss, used landscape fabric and about 3" of ceader mulch on top. I also had a soaker hose ring on each tree (under the mulch).
Its a shame these trees are doing this they are about 6 years old now. I read in Crockers Victory Garden to plant the tree and and then cut the main trunk down short, to force the roots to grow rather than developing a tree with leaves ect... I,ve heard Paul James say not to enrich the soil because it confines the roots to the enriched area only.
I think I'll send to Stark Bros this year and try some of theirs...
These borers you speak of, what do they look like? can one put a wire mesh around the site to prevent their arrival or can they climb and fly?

 

I had a PH test kit for lawns and its a chemical test mixed with the dirt I got around the root ball. It measured about 5. Earlier in the spring I added about a cup of pelletized limestone. I'm told it takes 6 months for lime to do anything.

 

At this point you have a Farmer & a neighbor & a Hortuculturist looking at Pics.

Now we have to look at only the facts. You grew a Peach tree that grew & produced peaches. Then in the 6th Spring the Tree flowered set fruit & is dying.

Peach trees are a bundle of Fungal & borer problems. When the tree dies it is uasully more than 1 cause. The borers are very small but they open tunnels up, & let fungi invade into the tree.

The fact that the tree has not been sprayed with a dormant Oil spray followed in 3 weeks by a Lime Sulpher spray let the fungal invaders gain a foothold has the classic symptoms.

Split bark with gummy sap round areas of sap & the real give away. The tree comes out in Spring leaves, flowers & fruit. Then the leaves fall off & the tree starts to die.

No mater what you chose to use Organic or chemical you must provide a Pest management program as on time as any peach Grower. A moth that looks like a wasp lays eggs on the tree & they hatch & work their way into places on the tree under the bark.

Some now Banned pesticides showed good killing power on very young borers but proved way to unsafe to use. Even then once the borer dug in so far only a small wire poked into the hole if you could find it would kill them. Peach growers can get soil fumagants with a licence to use on the young trees that helped the tree to produce longer.

I live in what was Apple country & now a Streptomyicen resistant Fire Blight is killing off the Orchards. The Back yard Orchard has become a full time job. Where once a few fruit trees in the backyard had healthy trees with apples that had a few scabs or marks. This has changed just as Humans have Bactieria attack them that are imune to the antibitocs that once killed them.

Since the Borers and fungi travel under the bark where the spray can't get at them we need new forms of control. At one time in the past people used ferrets to go in between the walls of their house & kill Rats. The Rats never got imune to a Ferret like they have to Rat poison.

We have been reading about Nematodes that go after and kill the borers & once again the borers never become imune to them.

We have enough history now to understand how we got here.

Everytime Man tries to control Nature with our Chemicals that did not evolve in Nature. The thing we try to kill out develops a way to beat our best efforts. How can a rat beat a ferret? How can a Borer beat a nematode? Oil smothers bug eggs & lime & Sulpher will destroy fungi spores. Farmers gave up on Chemicals to kill catapilars for Dipel, spores that hatch out inside a catapilers stomach & starves it to death.

I'm not trying to push Organics but you have to admit the Human body can beat a flu and become imune but no one can beat a bullet through the heart. The days and years ahead we face the fact that no matter what we come up with in the Lab is going to stop what Nature does best. Nature adapts to Chemicals like it has for millions of years. Life will find ways to survive, & Man must learn to use nature to control nature.

Remember hearing how the ****roach will survive the atom bomb? However take some suger & baking soda put it where they can eat it, and their stomach will explode because they can't burp Fight Nature & She will win. Work with Nature & she will help us survive.

I guess this soap box is getting ready to go to bed so I will let you think on some of my observations I have made in my life, & we will pick it up again.

Good night all

 

I did see what looked like vertical splits in the outer paperlike skin of the bark, if you looked at it, on an angle it almost looked like the way black birch will peal... I never saw any eggs on the peach, I think the ants would have attacked anything on the tree. I did see a cobwebb of hatching catapillars on the Mac tree and killed them with wasp and ant spray killer. They were dead instantly. I also removed the web nest. In the Northeast, the prevailing catapillar is the gypsy moth. I thought this is all it was. Now this tree lived through the winter and did alright...is it possible the infestation will survive the winter? Our frostline here is 36" and will get to O degrees.
I guess I should just rip up the tree, and take a deeper look at the roots. Does this same borer attack apple trees? Do I plant the new tree in a different site. How do I prepare the site so as not to be ringing the dinner bell for more borers and end up at square one? Is there a borer resistant tree out there?
I heard dwarf trees produce fruit faster, but I started to think, of the disadvantages...Deer can pick the tree clean up to about 6 feet! I may just go with the standard tree, and try patience.

 

I did see what looked like vertical splits in the outer paperlike skin of the bark, if you looked at it, on an angle it almost looked like the way black birch will peal... I never saw any eggs on the peach, I think the ants would have attacked anything on the tree.
That spliting of the Bark was the dead give away I used to determine that the tree is dying. The outer bark is where the tree brings water & food up into the tree, & when it is compromised the tree will die.

I did see a cobwebb of hatching catapillars on the Mac tree and killed them with wasp and ant spray killer. They were dead instantly. I also removed the web nest.
Those were tent catapilars & you can just use a broom to remove them, & smash them under foot.

I guess I should just rip up the tree, and take a deeper look at the roots. Does this same borer attack apple trees? Do I plant the new tree in a different site. How do I prepare the site so as not to be ringing the dinner bell for more borers and end up at square one? Is there a borer resistant tree out there?
I heard dwarf trees produce fruit faster, but I started to think, of the disadvantages...Deer can pick the tree clean up to about 6 feet! I may just go with the standard tree, and try patience.

The only reason I used any semi-Dwarf trees was we grow Antique fruit & to get more varieties we used some semis. A full size tree will always do better live longer & produce more fruit. Never grow a new tree where an old tree has been for at least 5 years. We dug a hole 6 feet across & 5 foot deep filled it with spent Mushroom Compost as a fill. Then put in time release Chicken Compost, Kelp meal, Blood meal, Bone meal & Espoma Plant Tone. The trees will be in that hole for many years & need more than 5-10-15 for the long haul.

I highly reccomend that you buy one book. It is called The Back Yard Orchardist this book is outstanding. Patience & a good Pest Managment spray program along with propper pruning tecniques will reward you with many years of good fruit.

 

Thanks so much for all the good info. These soil amendments...how does one find these locally?
One thing I have heard as a precautionary note, my daughter had heard in nursing school...A commonality found in Alzheimers patients was gardening and the use of bonemeal, and a link between Mad cow disease (Jacobs disease) and Alzheimers... If you use bonemeal, at least use a respirator as a precautionary step.

 

Thanks so much for all the good info. These soil amendments...how does one find these locally?
Your Welcome. I found my suplements at the local Nursery supply. Or one of the Home repair super stores may carry them also.

One thing I have heard as a precautionary note, my daughter had heard in nursing school...A commonality found in Alzheimers patients was gardening and the use of bonemeal, and a link between Mad cow disease (Jacobs disease) and Alzheimers... If you use bonemeal, at least use a respirator as a precautionary step.
I would reccomend everyone wear a mask matched to the job. Sprays Organic or not get a top quality mask with replaceable filters made for toxins. A paper mask called a comfort mask is used for dust like bone meal, blood meal, limestone etc.