North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Ward Barnes" <ward_p_barnes@hotmail.com>]

I have what appears to be fire blight in my 20 year old peach trees and now it has spread to my planting of three year old peaches.  I know that fire blight affects apple and pear trees but do not know about peach.  Have I correctly ID'ed the problem?  Die back on several branches on the affected trees with the bark having a black ugly burnt look and sometimes cracks that run along part of the limb which bleed.  This caused several trees to die last year.  If this is not fire blight what could it be?  In any case with what  and when do I treat for whatever this might be?

Thanks  in advance.

Ward Barnes, coastal zone 7, Wake, VA.

 

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>From dyellman@earthlink.net  Sat Apr 12 21:42:09 2003
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Delivered-To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org Received: from pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net (pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.122]) by happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 11E0C20029 for ; Sat, 12 Apr 2003 21:42:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from sdn-ap-006dcwashp0321.dialsprint.net ([63.188.49.67] helo=earthlink.net) by pintail.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 194WVT-0004Pi-00 for nafex@lists.ibiblio.org; Sat, 12 Apr 2003 18:42:08 -0700 Message-ID: <3E98C0C0.4010002@earthlink.net> Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 21:43:28 -0400 From: Don Yellman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [NAFEX] Peach Tree Life X-BeenThere: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: North American Fruit Explorers List-Id: North American Fruit Explorers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 01:42:09 -0000 Ward: I have just about concluded that that useful life of a peach tree in the Mid-Atlantic is 20 years, and that beyond 15 years they are living on borrowed time. The reason is disease, which usually chooses older trees. There are no real cures. What you have sounds like a classic case of bacterial canker (Pseudomonas syringae). Bacterial leaf spot is another disease that can weaken and eventually kill a peach tree, as is gummosis, which is fungal in origin. Any one of these diseases, or several others which attack older trees, and you have a terminal case. The solution is to plant a new tree, since even if the tree hangs on, the quality of the peaches declines dramatically. I have taken down seven peach trees over the past ten years that were afflicted with one or more of these diseases. Every 3 years or so, I plant two new trees in new locations to keep the peaches coming. I wish I could give you better news. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA