Thinning my peach tree to improve yield and health of the tree 

I think anytime you thin is better than not thinning.

you have to pull off about 80%..

Is that true? Sap runs before leaves are out in many species.

My favorite so far is Reliance. What a tasty peach.

Contender good to -40

Nope, I don't spray anything ever.

I would wait for fruit set. Sometimes you get a ton of blossoms but no fruit at all. Removing blossoms is like treating a problem before you even know you have a problem. You may have the opposite problem (poor polination) and be taking the opposite action for what you want.

Not unless there is curl.

There are definitely peach leaf curl resistant varieties. I picked up a variety called Flamin' Fury and it's supposed to be very resistant. We'll see. Other than that, just remove any affected leaves and keep them from growing on the tree to the best of your ability. Some people say that once it's on the site, you don't even need to remove the leaves or be careful touching the tree and spreading it everywhere because it's already everywhere. I don't know how true that is because what I'm doing is seeming to work. Maybe I'm just lucky, I don't know. I can see their point though, and conceptually it makes sense to me. It's 1 cell wall thick, so it's likely everywhere already. Still, I remove them because it's working. Some people spray copper fungicide on them, but anyone I know that did that, they have a worse problem now than I do (and we were comparable before they sprayed).

To be honestly I'm not entirely sure. For example, an anti-bacterial hand sanitizer is likely to be ineffective against the fungus that causes this. Infact, part of the reason this is so problematic is that there aren't really that many things that DO work against it. Some people spray copper fungicide on trees, but that's more of a preventative thing I believe. And Poppy did that last year (twice, and lots) and his trees are worse than mine now (much more so). Short answer is I'm not really sure anything other than a hose will do much. It's the scrubbing/washing action that you want, so if you have any way to do that in the field then try that. Also what I try to do is use one hand to pick the leaves, try not to touch them as much as possible (i.e. pinch below any affected area), then remove the leaf and put into a bucket. If you can keep one hand pretty clean (the picking hand) as you go, then you can probably "do your best" in that way.

Amazing, thank you 😊

Thanks Lilian

Yeah, it's crazy.

Thanks for watching :)

Perfect!

Oooooh keep talkin dirty to me

Haha! So true. My first season I teased apart tomato starts because I didn't want to lose any plants. Of course doing so, I did so much root damage that I basically killed every single plant. Now it's just a quick look at 2 seedlings: you are stronger you live, you are weaker, you die.

I couldn't agree more.

I spoke to my boys principal...short version. They are building a new ‘super school’, jk-12. I requested a greenhouse in the build. She agreed, loved the idea. I’m going to join the committee. Hopefully we can do plant sales & eventually Farmers Markets...putting money back into the program. Apiculture too? 🌻🐝💨🤞🏼

Wow! Build some kids who may want to start an apiary

I can yes, still haven't yet. I'm also going to completely leave the bottom peach tree alone (in my "wild garden") as an experiment to see what the difference is - both for this year's harvest and next. I'm all for science projects.

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy That sounds awesome, especially if you could manage some quantitative data from it, like total peaches and meat/peach

That's a great idea, but I would need to trees in ideal conditions. I can't control the variables, so I can make observations of course, but will have to understand that there are many factors at play. Most especially is sun hours and water variances. This garden up top is full sun, with land sloping towards it and garden on contour that holds water. My lower land (where the more neglected tree is located) is flat and shady.

I don't know for sure, but I would think Nectarines and Apricots would be susceptible too.

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy And almond trees. I used to get a little bit of it on my old almond.

I would think so yes. But I would also not spray trees when they are setting fruit like right now. The last thing you want right now is the tree to get a bunch of nitrogen (most compost teas are relatively heavy in nitrogen) and try to grow a bunch of leaves with that nitrogen. I suppose, unless your tree just lost all it's leaves to curl. However, there is an interesting paper out there comparing the nutritional benefits of various compost teas... lets see if I can dig it up, and if youtube doesn't block this comment because I'm linking externally.... here: www.researchgate.net/publication/325078608_The_Nutrient_Content_of_Organic_Liquid_Fertilizers_in_Zimbabwe. In section 3 of that paper, pigweed (i.e. amaranth) tested actually quite low in Nitrogen but high in potassium and phosphorous, which is actually what you would want to spray trees with during fruiting. So it's possible that growing an amaranth patch and fertilizing with THAT liquid fertilizer could be very good during fruit set. I should probably make a video about that. For the apple question, it's impossible to answer without a picture (and honestly I may not be knowledgable enough in that specific area regardless). I just know that apples tend to look like crap. The tree gets hit by so many diseases, so many pests eat the leaves, but they just keep chugging through and producing. Many of the problems (coddling moth, cedar rust, etc) have no solution. People may say cedar rust can be sprayed off, but that's just not a practice I'm getting into (that's literally why I'm growing my own food, so I'm not consuming chemicals), and the cedar rust overwinters in cedars so you'll just get it again on the next wind. For apples specifically, I think doing nothing and seeing if it ACTUALLY impacts your fruit set and harvest is a good idea. Often doing nothing is the correct decision. And sometimes it takes years of doing nothing for the solution to present itself (coddling moth is a great example of this - as you need to attract their predators and that can take a few seasons before those predators start laying eggs in your soil and breaking the pest cycle at the larval stage - which is the only solution).

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you so much for your reply. It’s clear I need to begin researching on fruit trees, as I know next to nothing at the moment. Doing nothing right now is right up my ally 🤣 I do remember your video on waiting for the predators to come around and that taking time. I was so fascinated with the concept that people have had to hear me going on and on about it (well only my gardening friends 😊) I will take a look at the article…..that’s interesting…..and I love to grow Amaranth 😊 Thank you again 👍

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy What a great article that is. I love that it’s being looked at to use plants that are a nuisance in the area for nutrition that’s good for the land. And it’s growing in abundance and free. Usually the problem is the solution in nature and is right under our feet, if we can just get out of our own way.

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I think the premise behind the foliar application of compost tea in this case is not to fertilize, but to introduce diverse biology that will help combat the over zealous pathogens and to keep them in check. I am still learning but recently had a rose rust fungus, and applied a homemade compost tea spray (made of Geoff Lawton's 18 day compost. Chicken poop, leaves, and forest floor) Within a week there were visibly less spores. I checked again today and only maybe 5% remain. Again, I have lots to learn but I do think there's merit to the principal. :) And as always... keep observing and adjusting. Food for thought. Ps - thanks for the link. Using certain plants to get different nutrient profiles in compost is somewhat similar in principal to KNF (Korean Natural Farming).

Indeed, great points thanks thanks adding them.

Wonderful! I'm glad this helps - it seems from the comments here that it helped many many people. Very timely. Yes indeed, the biggest thing about the practice of thinning is that it provides NEGATIVE reinforcement during the time you do it. Not only because it feels bad to pull fruit off, but mostly because the single biggest reason to thin is actually for NEXT season's harvest. You can either get a ton of mediocre sized peaches this year and none the next year, or you can get less fruit, (but honestly just as much or more "meat") by thinning. But at least you should get a great harvest next year also. If you don't thin, you may get rewarded this year. But then may enter a season or two recovery. That's the hard part - you get rewarded for doing the wrong thing. So much of human existence and the problems we face today echoes that similar theme. Being rewarded in the short term by selling the future down the river (and worse, often not even knowing that's what we're doing, we ONLY see the reward).

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy do you mean negative punishment? (Removal of a pleasant stimulus) I don't see a negative reward in there (removal of an aversive stimulus) but maybe I just misunderstood you

I meant negative reward. Sometimes not thinning the tree gives you lots of small fruit, but sometimes in a rainy season the tree can kind of manage it and make a massive harvest. The grower is happy. But it taxes the tree tremendously and the cost isn't paid until next year when you get nothing as the tree recovers from the previous season.

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy sorry I completely misunderstood you I was abit confused about what you were trying to say. Thanks a lot for the clarification

Definitely my fault !

No it only impacts peaches. One nice thing about it impacting every leaf on the tree, is that hopefully if it loses them all at the same time, and you can get rid of them all, then the new growth hopefully will be okay. It will stress the tree a bit but it should be okay. Another thing that can help is if you do plant a polyculture around it. Sometimes fallen leaves will deposit spores on the ground. Having plants around the tree can therefore help prevent rain from hitting the soils and splashing spores up.

Don't lose hope. I accidentally bought an infected tree which then went on to infect just about everything else in the peach family. I regularly removed all infected leaves every year since and now I only see one or two. If you're careful and clean always, it does pay off and infection rates drop.

Thanks!

Thank you :)

Good morning!

Good stuff

LOL this comment is perfect and completely accurate.

No I didn't, but I did whitewash with lime paint this year. I'm curious if that would have helped at all (it is chalky) - probably not, it would need to be fresh?

@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy I kind of paint more chalk during the whole season. Very important when the are breeding and egglaying. I start in the spring and reparation after rainfall or evey othet week from spring to frost in the autumn. It has hrlped and the trees are not as effekted as before. Hope this might help you in the future. I need to find other ways to do this. Since I've go e from 5 trees to well over 200 after the moved to my homestead. I plant as much as I can be sowing and making cuttings.

Thank you for this information Yasmin.

Glad it was helpful!

Came for peaches, stayed for physics lesson.

@@abdullahvonsnarkenson2442 yeah, I plan on watching it again with my kids just for the physics!

I have updated the description of the video with all my varieites. Thanks for the comment