Apricot vs Peach

In Central Europe the crop is most often lost to spring frost: the tree flowers early, blossom and fruitlets are damaged at just 1 to 2 °C below zero, and hard frost returning after mild winter days also harms buds and shoots. The other major problem is apoplexy, when a branch or the whole tree dies suddenly in midsummer; it results from several pathogens combined with stress (frost, winter pruning, wounds, waterlogging) and cannot be cured with sprays. So never prune an apricot in winter: do it at the red-bud stage or after harvest in late summer, in dry weather, and seal the cuts. In cool, wet weather at flowering Monilia blossom blight kills flowers and shoots, so spray at the start and end of flowering and cut diseased shoots back to healthy wood. Gummosis, shot hole, leaf spot, plum pox virus (marked fruit and stones), peach twig borer and oriental fruit moth are also common. Overall a demanding tree: it needs regular preventive spraying and careful summer pruning, and can still be shorter-lived than other fruit trees.

In Central Europe peach leaf curl (Taphrina deformans) appears every year: the emerging leaves thicken, blister, turn red and fall, and the tree weakens year after year. It can only be prevented: a copper wash before bud burst, then a systemic fungicide when the first tiny leaves show, repeated several times in a cool, wet spring; once curled leaves are visible it is too late. A sunny, airy site and a more resistant cultivar reduce the problem. Other troubles are powdery mildew (mainly on nectarines), shot hole, Monilia blossom and shoot blight and fruit rot, aphids, peach twig borer and oriental fruit moth, which tunnel in shoots and fruit, and plum pox virus. Flower buds are damaged by hard winter frost (roughly below minus 20 °C) and the blossom by spring frost. It fruits on the previous year's shoots, so it needs hard pruning every year (around flowering or in summer, not in winter) or it goes bare inside; the tree often declines after just 15 to 20 years, hastened by gummosis and branch dieback. Do not replant a peach in the same spot, and expect yellowing leaves (iron deficiency) on chalky soil.