- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Homegrown peaches are delicious, but in some parts of the country, they can be a lot of hard work.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Peaches are a popular garden fruit.

Today, we're going out to learn more about how to take care of them with retired Extension agent Mike Dennison.

He will talk about common diseases, and then we are going out to the orchard to show how to prune and spray them.

Let's get started.

[upbeat country music] All right, Mr. D. Let's talk about one of your favorite subjects, huh?

- We're gonna talk about peaches, aren't we?

- Peaches, right.

You like peaches, don't you?

- Dr. Arlie Powell at Auburn University used to say, "Peaches are the queen of the fruit."

- Queen of the fruit.

- And they are.

They are really good.

I like all kinds of fruit, but peaches are super, super good.

- But they have a lot of issues, right?

- They are hard to grow.

My hat is off to commercial peach producers.

- I would agree with that.

- Because they have insects and diseases.

You know, a lot of fruits have insects and diseases.

Peaches have one or two insects that can kill them.

- Kill.

[laughing] - And they have one or two diseases that can kill them.

And if you don't control those, then you're gonna have real problems.

- So let's talk about diseases of peaches, and we're gonna start with brown rot.

- Okay , well, brown rot affects the twigs, it'll affect the leaves, and it affects the fruit.

On the fruit, it gets its name, brown rot, from the way it looks on the fruit.

The whole peach will turn brown, starting as this little small spot on this peach, and it will spread, and it will eventually envelop the entire peach, the entire peach, and it's just a brown rot.

And on leaves, the way it affects leaves is the spots on the leaves, and the spots will grow.

And the twigs, discoloration on the twigs, it'll die.

Actually the fuzz on a peach, the fuzz actually interferes with the spores attaching.

And a nectarine is naked.

- Right, right.

Yeah.

- It doesn't have any fuzz on it, and so brown rot is worse on nectarines than they are on peaches.

If you see symptoms of brown rot, too late.

- Too late.

I knew you were going to say it.

- So that's why we go with preventative fungicide applications on peaches.

- Okay, wow.

All right.

So let's roll over to peach leaf curl.

What does that look like?

- Peach leaf curl, it's pretty self-explanatory.

The leaves will kind of curl, and they'll be discolored, they'll be yellow, and they'll eventually fall off.

- So let's talk a little bit about phony peach.

So what is that?

- Okay.

Phony peach is a devastating disease of peaches.

It spends part of its life cycle on a plum tree and part of its life cycle on a peach tree, and it will kill both of them.

On plum trees it's called plum leaf scald.

On peach trees, it's phony peach, and the symptom that you'll see, you know, peach leaves are folded kinda like a boat.

- Right.

Ah.

- If they open up and they're flat and they don't have that fold to 'em, that's a good indication that you might have phony peach, and it's caused by a Rickettsia-type organism that's spread by leafhoppers, feeds on a plum tree, and then feeds on a peach tree and spreads that organism.

That's why we don't recommend planting plum trees next to peach trees, and also even wild plums, if they're close, can be a vector or a source of infection.

- Okay, so let's get to the insect pests.

- Okay.

- Curculio.

You like to talk about that one a lot.

- Plum curculio, the most devastating insect that affects peaches, plums, and nectarines.

The symptom of that is really easy.

On a small fruit, you'll see a little crescent-shaped scar, because the adult will land on the fruit, she'll cut a little opening, and then she'll lay an egg underneath that flap and go on about her business.

[Chris chuckling] And that egg will hatch, the little larvae or grub will burrow throughout the fruit, and, you know, eventually damage the whole fruit.

And most of the time the fruit will fall off, but if you go out there, if you haven't been spraying your peaches, and you go out there and there's a little crescent-shaped scar on the fruit, it's already infected.

- So is it pretty easy to see?

- It's pretty easy to see.

Very easy to see.

- Okay.

- Very easy to see.

- How about that, from the old plum curculio.

All right, so let's move to the peach scale.

- Peach scale is a white scaly substance.

Peach scale is one of the insects that can kill peach trees.

Every limb that the scale completely encircles will die.

If it completely encircles the trunk of the tree, the trunk will die.

Now, in our area, here in the Memphis area, there are three generations of peach scale per year.

- That's a lot.

- You get further south down toward the Gulf Coast, they have four generations per year.

- Wow.

Okay.

- The crawlers, as these generations occur, the crawlers are easy to kill.

The malathion will kill them, but when you see the white adult structures on the plant, insecticides can't get to the scale and they're pretty much ineffective.

Oil, the oils will, you know, if you spray with oil, that will take care of the adults, but if you're at the point where you've already got the adults showing up there, you better get to work with the oils very, very quickly.

- All right, so let's get to the borer.

- Peachtree borer?

- Peachtree borer.

Insect number two that can kill your tree.

Symptom of a peachtree borer is gum oozing out of the base or the lower trunk of a peach tree.

What it is, that tree is trying to flush that borer out, and it's like you get something in your eye, your tears try to flush it out, but it won't do it.

It can't do it.

- All right, so let's talk about how to treat for these.

- Okay.

From UT's Home Orchard Spray Guide, the cover sprays, basically captan or sulfhur plus malathion.

You know, that's what we recommend for cover sprays.

Chlorothalonil is also recommended during bloom.

To spray fruit trees, do it correctly, you need to go with a dormant spray oil during dormancy.

At bloom, you need to go in and spray with the captan.

Do not mix insecticides with your fungicide during bloom, anytime there's blooming, because we don't want to hurt the honeybees, but fungicides don't do that, and it's important to apply fungicides during bloom.

At petal fall when most of the petals have fallen off, go back in there with, and I would probably mix it up a little bit.

You could use captan, but sulfur or chlorothalonil is recommended at petal fall.

When the petals are all off, include your insecticide, your malathion.

And then when the shuck splits, the same thing, captan or sulfur or chlorothalonil plus malathion.

And then when the fruit forms, and this is 7 to 10 days later, either captan or sulfur plus malathion, and you do that throughout the growing season, every 7 to 10 days.

If it doesn't rain, you can stretch it out to 10 days.

If it rains, just assume you didn't spray.

You wanna keep a protective coat, protective coat of fungicide, and the insecticide really needs to be there to meet the plum curculio when she's looking for a place to lay her egg.

Hopefully there's malathion there on that little fruit when she lands.

Now- - That's a lot of spraying.

- In addition to the cover sprays, and this is up until, you know, to close to harvest, you know, but in addition to control the peachtree borer, you need to use esfenvalerate or gamma-cyhalothrin, one of these two insecticides.

You spray the trunk and lower limbs of the peach tree, May 31st, June 30th, and July 15th, and that's when the female's gonna be out there trying to lay eggs on the bark or on the lower portion of that tree.

And then you can do another application after harvest.

You don't wanna apply this within 14 days of harvest, so depending on the variety that you've got.

Now, there are a lot of problems you don't see with peaches if you go with a regular spray program.

- Right.

But you definitely have to have a spray program.

- You gotta have a spray program.

[upbeat country music] - Today we're talking about peach trees.

Every spring, peach trees need to be pruned to keep them healthy and productive.

Let's see how Mr. D does it.

[upbeat country music] So what're we gonna do here?

- This is a nectarine tree.

We treat nectarines, peaches, and plums the same way.

We prune them to an open-centered system, and this is the way we open up the center.

- Oh boy.

- You see this is trying to be a pear or an apple tree.

It has a strong central leader here.

This is what we do with that.

- Oh man, we just gonna take it out like that?

- Kinda like that.

I'm gonna be gentle.

- Okay.

- Because I don't want to injure any of these other scaffold limbs.

[Chris groans] We used to say, these trees, back in the old days cost about $2, and they say you take out about $1.80 and leave about a dime's worth and you're kind of going in the right direction.

And so that's what we're doing.

Is it looking a little more open?

- Oh yeah, there's your dime's worth.

- It's a little low here, and we've got three scaffold limbs, which is really fine, really all you need.

And, you know, I took off a lot of fruit.

On a young tree like this, it's much more important to develop the tree, the shape of the tree, than it is to get fruit off of it.

You'll have plenty of time to get fruit later on if you take care of it.

There we are.

How about that?

- All right.

All right, Mr. D, off to the next tree.

- Off to the next tree.

Let's do it.

- Okay.

All right, Mr. D. We have here about a 10-year-old nectarine tree.

- And when I walk up to a tree that's got this much age on it, the first thing I look at is, has it got any broken limbs.

And I see this limb right here has got some damage, and so I'm gonna take care of that.

That's in my mind.

I also want to take off everything that's, you know, from my waist down.

We call 'em hanger downers.

I want to take all the hanger downers off, and then I'm gonna take off everything growing back toward the center.

Ideally I want every limb to have its shot at the sun, and so ideally I won't have another limb shading another one.

I wanna take out limbs that are crossing over.

And with that being said, I'm gonna get in here and go to work.

- Ah, he's pulling out the big gun.

[chuckling] - Okay, this limb has both of the broken limbs on it, I think.

- Yeah, it does.

- That I saw, so I'm gonna take that off, and I really think I can get to it from here.

Actually...

This is a little bit easier to handle.

Yeah, I'm gonna make a little cut on the bottom, 'cause I don't wanna strip out this tree, and then I'm gonna go up again.

This is about a half inch from the trunk.

[saw cutting] Okay?

This right here, I wanna open up the center a little bit.

I'm gonna take it off.

[saw cutting] All right.

I'm making these double cuts because I don't wanna strip off this bark.

Grab it, Chris.

- All right.

Yeah, I got it.

- I don't wanna damage the limbs that I'm leaving.

There you are.

- I got it.

- Oh yeah.

- And I like the shears that I use are...

I like the scissors-cut shears.

I don't like the anvil-type shears.

They do more damage to the limbs.

And you need sharp shears.

Okay.

This is a hanger downer right here.

Take it off.

All right, now I'm looking at anything growing back toward me, toward the center of the tree.

I'm taking that out.

I wanna be where I can get into this tree from any direction, and I'm really, really thinking about taking that limb out right there, but I'm gonna hold off on that right now.

I can always do it later.

I'm also gonna take out any dead limbs.

Like that's a dead limb right there, quite a few dead limbs here, little dead limbs that were probably shaded out last year.

I'm gonna take those off.

All right.

I don't like to fight my way into a tree, so I'm gonna open it up here a little bit.

This is kind of growing back toward the center, taking that off.

This is growing straight up.

This limb is crossing over, invading this one's territory a little bit.

This one's growing a little bit more upright, got some damage on it.

I'm gonna leave a few of these, because there's some nectarines right there I don't want to cut off.

This is probably a little low, and that's growing back toward the center, so I'm taking that off.

That's dead.

This is a hanger downer right here, but there's some fruit right there, so I'm gonna take the hanger downer off and let that produce a nectarine for me.

This is growing back toward the center, growing straight up.

Limbs that are growing straight up, like these, I consider those water sprouts and they will not have any fruit.

They pretty much rob the tree of nutrition, and they're trying to be the central leader, just like on an apple or a pear tree.

So I take the water sprouts out, anything growing straight up.

When you have a lot of small limbs on a branch, I'll go in and like take every other one out to give 'em a little space.

[shears snipping] And as I go up on these limbs, I'll pretty much take everything on the top part of the limb that has a tendency to grow straight up.

These trees were bred and designed to be pruned, and if you don't prune these improved varieties, if you don't, Mother Nature will, and Mother Nature sometimes doesn't make as clean a cut as I do.

She can be rather brutal at times.

[shears snipping] This is kind of congested here.

[shears snipping] Get all of these going straight up.

Ideally on a peach or a nectarine, when you're out here to the side, you'd like all of your fruiting wood to be from about your waist to as high as you can reach, not much higher than as high as you can reach, keeping in mind that when the fruit are on the tree, the upper limbs are gonna come down some, so you can let that, you know, you can be a little higher than you can reach.

You can do that.

And you notice, again, I'm making the cut above a limb that's growing in the direction that I want it to go.

[shears snipping] [Mike grunts] Okay, Chris.

I could work on this all day.

You know, it's like a haircut or clipping a show steer.

You always see another limb you could take off, but got it opened up.

This tree is really...

It started out... You can see all these trees are like peas in a pod.

When they started they cut 'em off at 18 to 20 inches, and that's how the scaffold limbs came out at the right height, so they've really done a good job with these fruit trees.

- All right, we definitely appreciate that pruning demonstration.

- All right, good deal.

- And again, you put in some work on that one.

- Yeah, I broke a sweat.

[Chris laughing] [upbeat country music] - Earlier, we talked about common peach diseases, and regular spraying is a big part of preventing them.

Next, Mike is going to show us how to spray a peach tree to protect it from diseases and insects.

[upbeat country music] All right, Mr. D. - Talk about spraying.

- Gonna talk about spraying trees, right?

- Peach trees.

That's right.

Before I get into the actual spraying demonstration, I wanna talk a little bit about safety.

Probably the best thing you can do where safety is concerned, first is to read the label.

And near the top of the label, after it tells you what we've got and the active ingredients and all of that, it's gonna tell you what to wear.

Never will you see on the pesticide label telling you to wear shorts, T-shirts, and flip-flops.

- This is true.

- They're always gonna tell you to wear a hat, to wear safety glasses, to wear rubber gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, long pants, and shoes or boots.

And so that's- - You ready to go?

- I'm ready to go.

- Ready to go.

- And I'm doing this not just because of the label, but because I've sprayed enough to know that sometimes the wind changes and sometimes it drifts on you.

And, I mean, I've gotta go 360 degrees around this tree to get it sprayed.

If there's any wind at all, at some point I'm gonna be downwind, so I want some protective gear on.

If you get some on you, wash it off immediately.

Just go wash it off.

Soap and water.

If you need to take a shower, take a shower.

And, you know, wash your clothes, but- - Is that pretty soon after?

- Pretty soon.

Especially if it's on your skin.

- Skin?

Right.

- If it gets on your skin, yes, very soon afterwards you need to go on and get it off of you.

Most of the pesticides we're talking about, or all of them are not restricted-use pesticides, so they're not that dangerous for homeowners to use if you follow that label, label instructions.

Okay.

- All right.

- I've already gotten my sprayer mixed up here.

This tree is about, what, eight-feet tall?

That tells me that I'm probably gonna need to mix up about a half gallon to a gallon of material to spray.

Now that's important to know, because you don't wanna mix up more than you really need.

You wanna run out when you're spraying.

You don't want to have any left over, because you don't wanna store it.

It can clog up your sprayer.

It may become inactivated and not work for you.

So there's a lot of things you wanna finish up spraying, you know, when you- - Do enough to spray it out.

- That's right.

Do enough to spray it out.

Because this peach tree still has some blooms on it, I am not going to apply an insecticide in this first spray.

I'm going to only apply fungicide.

I've got a spreader sticker mixed in there too to make it stick to the limbs.

I'm gonna spray almost to the point of runoff.

I'm gonna direct my spray to the lower, both sides of the leaves if I can.

I'm gonna also go down and spray the base of the tree, and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get brown rot.

Brown rot is the number one fungal disease on peaches, plums, and nectarines, and it can destroy you if you don't control brown rot.

So we've got wind at about four miles an hour, which is good.

- So that's considered to be okay.

- The best is no wind or very little wind.

That's almost impossible to happen.

If the wind's blowing more than 10 miles an hour, ten or fifteen miles an hour, you probably ought not to be spraying.

You probably need to put it off.

You know, if you do spray when you know you're gonna get spray on you, you need a face mask too.

- Wow.

- Use a face mask.

- So you gotta be careful.

- You don't wanna breathe any of this stuff, and you don't wanna get it on your skin.

- Gotta be careful, folks.

- Okay, let's get to it.

- All right, let's do it.

- Gimme a little pressure here.

- Okay.

[sprayer pumping] All right, that oughta do.

- That oughta do.

I can hear it.

- A flat fan nozzle is a good nozzle to use when you're spraying fruit trees.

Let's see what we've got here.

[mixture spraying] This tree is really easy to spray because it's been pruned well.

The center is opened up.

If it had not been pruned well it would be almost impossible to get my spray mixture on these leaves.

- That's a good open center.

- It's opened up and it's very easy to get good coverage on this tree.

Let me go on and move on around here.

- That's a great illustration.

- You don't have to spray until it runs off.

Spray it almost to the point of runoff.

Turn my wand over, spraying the underside.

Wanna make sure I spray the trunk and lower limbs, because those fungal spores can attach themselves anywhere.

Now, I only am using fungicide.

You see that?

I saw a honeybee fly there.

This fungicide will not hurt honeybees.

You can buy home orchard sprays that are already premixed.

It's very important that you do not use a premixed home orchard spray while the plant is blooming, because it already has the insecticide in it.

The fungicide that I'm using is captan.

I could also use sulfur or I could use chlorothalonil.

Either one of those fungicides work well.

As soon as all the petals have fallen off, I'm going to add an insecticide into the mix.

Now with peaches, plums, and nectarines, I have a choice between malathion and carbaryl.

Most home orchard sprays have malathion and captan.

[sprayer pumping] Pretty important to use a spreader sticker.

You can use a commercial spreader sticker or just use detergent.

[Chris laughing] Teaspoon or tablespoon of detergent will do just as well.

- Oh yeah, good ol' Liquid Joy or some Dawn will do just fine.

And while you're doing that, Mr. D, you can mention about the orchard spray guide.

That can definitely help you out.

- That's right.

I got the information I've been giving you, all of it came from the Home Orchard Spray Guide for the state of Tennessee.

Chris has 'em in his office.

You can go to UT's website and get 'em, or you can simply Google or use a search engine and list "home orchard spray guide" for whatever state you're in.

If you're in Mississippi or Kentucky, I would encourage you to go to that state's land grant institution.

Now what I'm doing here needs to be done every 7 to 10 days.

- Wow.

So what if it rains in between one of those, Mr. D?

- If it rains, then that application has been erased.

- Oh man.

[chuckling] - And you need to, as soon as possible, redo it.

- As soon as possible.

- As soon as possible redo it, because if you wait two or three days, those two or three days, that tree is unprotected.

- Right, because like you always say, right, if you have plum, peaches, and nectarines, you're gonna have to do some spraying, right?

- You are.

I promise you.

There's nothing that I know of organic that will prevent plum curculio and brown rot.

- Oh boy.

- If you know of something that will, let me know.

And be aware, I've already tried pretty much everything.

If you have something on your mind that you think will work, [Chris laughing] you know, I've probably already heard it.

I've been doing this for about 35 years.

- Oh, I think you'll know a little something about that.

- Well, I think we've got that one sprayed for now.

It's clouding up, may rain in a little while.

We may need to do this again in a couple hours, but maybe not.

[upbeat country music] - All right, well, we appreciate that demonstration, Mr. D. - Most welcome.

- All right.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to familyplotgarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to learn more about growing peaches in your garden, we have many videos and more information at familyplotgarden.com.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]