[quote='David Hare-Scott[_2_];942036']Peachless wrote:
'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.

I don't know what is in Murphy's mixture, this is an international group,
you cannot count on products that you have being found world wide. I use
commercial copper oxychloride or bordeax, they are very similar being a
suspension of semi-soluble copper compounds.

Leaf curl is caused by a fungus, spraying it is not an all or nothing
prospect. The less you spray (or the less effectively) the more fungus you
get. The more you spray the less you get but you need to take into account
that the environment cannot absorb large amounts of copper indefinitely, it
is a poison (which is why it kills fungus) and it is not destroyed. So I
spray once a year and tolerate a little leaf curl if I miss a bit. There
are probably people who don't need to spray at all because the conditions
don't favour the fungus. So you pays your money and takes your choice.

David[/Thank you so much for your advice. Are you in the US or UK? I don't know how to tell which zone I am in when reading up for advice. My fruit trees are all young three or four years old so I don't need litres of spray. I put the nectarine and one peach (Meldred) into unheated greenhouse over winter as they are in large containers. I have some very well rotted horse manure. Should I put it round the trunks (I know not to allow it to touch
the trunks). Of not now, when should I do this?


the trunks? If not now when?QUOTE]