Peach leaf curl: how to recognise and treat it

Disease

Peach leaf curl — Photo: Giancarlo Dessì, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Symptoms

New leaves in spring pucker, thicken and curl, turning red or purple.
A greyish-white powdery bloom of spores appears on the distorted leaves.
Diseased leaves fall early, and the tree may lose much of its first foliage.

Organic treatment

Remove curled leaves as soon as they appear to reduce the fungus carried over.
Copper spray just after leaf fall and again in late winter before bud break; spraying after symptoms appear does not help.

Chemical treatment

Fungicide with chlorothalonil after leaf fall and before bud break; follow the label dose and pre-harvest interval.

Reference information, not a guarantee. Read and follow the label of any product: dose, safety and the days to wait before harvest.

Prevention

Keep rain off wall-trained trees with a plastic shelter open at the ends from leaf fall until mid-May.
Grow resistant peach cultivars such as 'Frost', 'Avalon Pride' or 'Muir'.
Treat every year before bud break, because infection happens as buds open in wet weather.

Plants it affects

Sources

Figures checked against these sources.