More wet weather woes, Brown Rot on my Peaches. :(

[journey11]

My peach tree was totally loaded this year and I was really looking forward to those peaches. Today I observed it is suddenly taken over with brown rot, just as the peaches are beginning to ripen. (And almost all of my tomatoes have Early Blight, btw. ) What a hard year this has been!

Here's a good PDF article I found on controlling diseases in the home orchard, from the WVU ag. extension. Looks like I will be very busy working to prevent these troubles next year.

 

[Sunsaver]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I had an terrible year last year and lost some of my oldest grapevines to the drought, so i can relate.

 

[lesa]

Oh, Journey- for heavens sake!! I am sorry to hear all these gardening woes. Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress...

 

[thistlebloom]

So sorry Journey, hopefully something else you planted will be stupendous this year. It's the tough years that separate the real gardeners from the fad followers.
It does tend to make us learn more!

 

[journey11]

Yes, I'm definitely taking notes on bad weather and preventative spraying. Foresight is not one of my strongest assets.

If I get any watermelon and canteloupe this year, I think I'll call it even!

 

[popsgumdrop]

We've had a lot of rain here in the last two or three weeks as well. It ruined the end of my peach harvest. None of the ones that ripen without splitting have any taste at all. I also lost two cantaloupe so far. I put bricks under the 4 remaining good ones so that they don't sit on the wet ground anymore. Hopefully that will help.

 

[vfem]

Unfortunately, the brown rot requires you kill the fungus while its dormant and it requires a strong fungicide, organic ones won't work on it. You'll have to spray several times over winter and kill the fungus while it's asleep. My neighbor went through that, and we were able to clear it up. Took 3 years for him to realize what it was but we got it squashed! He had a decent harvest this year.

 

[dinkadoo]

Have a good friend who's an extension agent with Clemson and he said that sometimes hail damage can show up weeks after the occurance and mimics brown rot. But it never hurts to spray early anyway! We have aproblem with peach borers down here and for the world the wound looks like rot. Don't ever know. Sure hope you can save some good fruit.

 

[skeeter9]

My gosh, Journey, you are sure getting your share of challenges! I will send good thoughts your way. . .and maybe this will help, too.