Ruud Kleinpaste: Taphrina deformans or peach leaf curl

I’m trying a different tack on Newstalk ZB.   

It’s something I use with teachers and kids at school: the meaning of scientific names of living organisms helps to remind us how certain creatures operate or how they can be identified.  

Once you get that in your gardening vocabulary it becomes a lot easier to prevent or control the problem that’s causing you regular troubles.  

Taphrina is the name of a parasitic fungi (belonging to the family Taphrinaceae) that produce asci in a superficial hymenium having an indeterminate margin and cause leaf curling and malformations like blisters on various vascular plants.  

It literally tells us it’s a name of Rotter-Fungus that causes curling, malformation, and blisters.  

The second name (deformans) repeats the symptoms: it causes deformations. That tells us it is a real bummer to have on your plants (especially on stonefruit: peaches, nectarines, plums, peachcotts, peacherines, apricots, etc). 

Ladies and gentlemen: we’re talking about leaf curl on peaches (and Bladder Plum/Plum Pocket on plums).  

Spring and summer are the main months of queries on our Gardening programs: how to deal with Taphrina deformans and, while we're at it, Taphrina pruni.  

Short answer: in spring and summer you’re too late. Yes, the disease starts in spring, but you can’t spray copious amounts of copper on the new and tender leaves – young leaves will burn!  

Right now, in the middle of Autumn you can avoid the infection. 

Around mid to late April, when the leaves are falling off the deciduous stone fruit trees, the new buds for the next season are formed. Taphrina deformans will then be invading those new buds and overwinter on those buds to infect the trees again in spring. 

First thing to do is to remove all fallen leaves from under the trees. That reduces infection chances.  

Next thing is to spray a double dose of copper spray (copper oxychloride, liquid copper, or copper-sulphur mixtures, available form garden centres) on the remaining leaves and on the branches/twigs of the tree. Use a “sticker” if you can to increase coverage and stickability. 

Do this again a few weeks or a month later and ensure good coverage of all parts of the tree.  

Some people use Lime sulphur. That’s okay too as a winter clean-up – seeing as the trees are getting to dormancy, Lime Sulphur won’t harm the leaves, but I think that lime may not be a great material for apricots as it has the ability to raise the pH levels.  

A last smack of Copper spray before budburst should “mop up” the last surviving spores before the flowering and fruiting season begins again.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at me.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Ah man in the garden is Rude climb passed? Hey Rude?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hey, how Jack? You're all good? Yeah, I'm very well.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Thanks. Hey, hey, just before we get into things this week.
I don't know about you, but I just watching from
Afar and seeing the news. I have been quite affected
by the by the murder of this young man in Auckland.
Kyle Warrell was this entomologist in Auckland. And you know,
I know that the entomology community isn't the largest community

(00:40):
in the world. I just I don't know I as
someone who obviously has dedicated his life and is similarly
passionate about bugs and insects and things. I just I
wondered how you had kind of taken in that news
this week.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's yeah, it is an awful thing to happen. The
irony is that I don't I did not know know
that guy at all, to be quite honest.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
Yeah, And the and the reason is because he is
based in Auckland. But we also had earlier this year
another entomologist who got who got killed by some idiots
in in.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Blockhouse Bay and the ironies.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
I knew him really well, and I knew his tennis
club really well, and et cetera, et cetera, and that
those are the awful things.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
And so we have talked to a few.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Entomologists at the moment, because we quite often go out
at night looking for things.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
And suddenly we think, whoa, yeah, had a good idea.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean, it's just it's crazy that we would
be having these conversations in New Zealand. So sad, I just, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Where where's the respect? That's it?

Speaker 4 (01:46):
So, yeah, I totally agree with you. We we really
have to think about that in the future. I do
it a lot with teachers, going outside at night with
the uvy torch. It's great fun.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Buts okay, anyway, you're thinking about names this morning.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm thinking about names. I'm thinking about Trina de Mormons.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
The reason is, for instance, that a lot of people say, oh,
we've got this this lovely little trouble on our on
our trees, especially on peaches and things like that, and
how do we work about that?

Speaker 3 (02:20):
And what are we doing about?

Speaker 4 (02:22):
So I go like, Tafrina is the fundus basically that
basically goes onto these particular plants and especially especially fruit trees.
And the point is now is the time that you
can do something about that, and that is the important thing.
So what I do with my pitches is from now on,

(02:46):
especially when the leaves are falling, I give them a
double dose of copper. Once I do it again two
or three weeks later, and basically the leaf girl on
the paches will at this stage become part of the tree.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
You basically be early on getting rid.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
Of the of the of the live girl by spraying
it right now. And if you've got bloody plum or
plump pocket as they call it, same thing, it is
also a tafrina.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
It does the same thing, and it actually causes a
lot of trouble on your plants later on in spring.
This is the time.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay, very good, here, we'll get onto that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
makes a lot of sense. Thank it makes a lot
of sense. All right, you'll give them. The weather starting
to turn, it's probably the time to start focusing on
those kinds of things. Thank you very much, sir. We
will catch you again, get you very soon. That is
real climb passed in the garden for us this morning.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
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