"Peachless" wrote in message
...

'David Hare-Scott[_2_ Wrote:
;941996']Peachless wrote:-
I have three beautiful peach trees, one nectarine, one apricot and
several other fruit trees. My question is this. I need to spray at
leaf fall with something to prevent peach leaf curl BUT the leaves
are still green and only a few have fallen. Can anyone advise me what
to do about the spraying programme which I have carried out
faithfully (with Dithane) for the past three years and have had some
excellent fruit.-

If you want to spray when the leaves fall then why not wait, are you
expecting that they will not fall for some reason?

I have always sprayed stone fruit for peach leaf curl with copper just
before budding in late winter when there are no leaves and that works
for
me. As for which time, if either, is better I cannot say.

David I live in the UK, on the coast, South East. I have several potions
with which to spray my peach trees, maybe you can advise me as to which
is the best one to use out of the following: Murphy's traditional copper
fungicide, Vitax Bordeaux mixture and Bayer's Dithane. They all state
to spray at leaf fall and again mid February and then 14 days following
that. Thank you for your reply. Leaf fall is usually in Autumn and I am
worried that I may leave it too late as I also put one of them into an
unheated greenhouse when all the leaves have fallen.

For leaf curl, all I've ever used is home made Bordeaux mix and that works
to stop leaf curl in my garden. This past year, I gave the recipe for
Bordeaux mix to a friend who said that she had had leaf curl every single
year and had never had one year without getting it despite supposedly having
sprayed with bought stuff - I have no idea what she'd tried though. Last
time I saw her (about a month ago) I couldn't get away from her because she
just raved on and on about how effective the Bordeaux mix was after having
sprayed this (southern hemisphere) Spring when the flower buds are swelling
and before leaf burst.

I spray in Spring and should also spray in Autumn but often dont' get round
to it.

If you're interested, here is the recipe for home made Bordeaux:
Dissolve 100grams of copper sulphate in 3 litres of hot water in a plastic
bucket and set aside overnight. Next day, in another plastic bucket, mix
100 grams of Hydrated lime in 3 litres of cold water and carefully pour the
water off the settled lime into the bucket containing the copper solution.
Add enough water to make up to 10 litres. I soak my trees thoroughly with
this mix

Make sure you get the right sort of lime - it must be hydrated, or if you
can't get any, replace the lime with washing soda and follow the directions
as given. This latter mix is called Burgundy mix. I know it won't mean
anything to you, but these recipes are from a well known TV gardener called
Peter Cundall - a living treasure.