- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Biting into a juicy fruit from your orchard is a great reward for a gardener, but often fruits have problems.

Today we are answering viewer questions about tree fruits.

It's a fruity Q&A show, just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Over the past year or so, we have received many viewer questions about tree fruits.

We have not had a chance to show you all of them.

Since it's winter and there's not much to do in the garden right now, we thought we'd spend some time catching up.

Hopefully some of these answers will help you with your fruit next year.

Let's start with a question about peaches.

"What would you do with a peach tree with gummosis?"

And this is Mary from Crossville, Tennessee.

Celeste, so what would you do with peach trees that have gummosis?

- Well, I would encourage her to go out there and look at the trunk of the tree, and let's verify what exactly is happening.

Gummosis is a real thing that could happen on its own, right?

- Right.

- But it sounds more likely that she might be having an issue with borers, and when they bore, then sometimes we'll have oozing of, you know, that gummy substance, and so it can look like gummosis, but maybe the actual, maybe that's a secondary, right, issue, and maybe the root cause is peach tree borers, 'cause it's peach trees, right?

- Right, it's peach trees.

- So there you go, yeah.

- Could be, yep.

- I think that would be a very likely cause, and I get this call, you know, all the time in the spring when trees start coming out of dormancy and their juices start to flow, and people wanna know what is all of this stuff coming outta my plants?

It can be kind of a horror movie looking, you know, kind of scenario.

But definitely go out there and look, because, you know, treatment for those is gonna be different.

If it's borers, then we need to look at what we can do to control the borers.

If it's gummosis, then there's really not a lot that we can do.

Generally that was caused, you know, from damage maybe that happened to the trunk.

It could be through a number of different types of stresses, environmental, you know, freeze and thaw cracks or mechanical injury to the tree or different things like this.

And then when that injury happens, then that gummosis starts to flow out, and there's just nothing you can really do to rectify that type of situation.

- You're right, you know, outside of trying to prune, you know, possibly, you know?

- Yeah.

Well, and I mean, sometimes it's, yeah, it's one of those things that could be insect, it could be physiological.

There could even be some diseases.

There could even be some canker.

So yeah, close inspection, good pictures, and then direct from there.

- And I see it actually, I mean, I see it most often on the trunks of trees, and I mean- - I do too, right, yeah.

- At that point, like, can't prune your trunk off.

- You can't prune your trunk.

I mean, you could do a prune, but it'd be [whooshes].

- Right, right.

- Be one cut.

- It'd be one cut, one cut.

- Yeah, one cut.

But yeah, if it's in, you know, upper, you know, limbs, branches and things like that, I mean, pruning is an option.

- Well, and that whole family, you know, it's a challenge.

- Oh, yes, the Prunus, the whole family, yeah.

- The family, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, for sure, so it's gonna be, they're gonna have issues anyway, right, so yeah.

Get out, Ms. Mary, and inspect, all right?

Hope that helps you out.

- Yeah, look for little holes in the trunk, yeah.

- Yeah, look for the little holes, yeah, you'll see it.

[gentle country music] "I am helping my neighbor.

"Her peach tree has peach leaf curl.

"The tree already has fruit "about the size of my little fingertip.

"I have researched the disease.

"However, everything I've found "is for preventive care, fungicides twice a year.

"The products I have found warn against using them "once the tree blossoms.

What can I use to get rid of peach leaf curl?"

And this is Charlie from San Jose, California, right?

So there's a little research, you know, that went into that.

So we know it's peach leaf curl.

- Yep, and they- - But how do we get rid of it?

- And she told us the answer.

- Yeah, yeah, how about that?

- Or Charlie, Charlie.

- Charlie.

- Charlie, he told us the answer.

Once you've got the disease, unfortunately, most of the time, you can't get rid of it.

The only thing-- - I knew you were gonna say that.

- That you can hope to do is prevent it from spreading.

- I knew you were gonna say that.

- And you can prune, do some pruning, summer pruning to get rid of that.

But to prevent it from happening, you do need to use the fungicide at the right time.

And really with peach tree curl, only one application is all that's required.

You can either do it in the fall after leaf has dropped off that tree and do a really, really, really good job of spraying the bark, making sure you spray the bark and twigs and get very, very good coverage.

Or you can do it in early spring before bud break.

And you're probably gonna have a better opportunity in the fall after the leaves drop of getting the weather conditions that will allow you to have that fungicide stay on there and not get washed off- - Right, that's the key.

- Than you will in the springtime.

- It's the weather.

- You know, right before bud break because you spray it and then it washes it off.

- Right, right.

- And you're like, "Well, did I kill the fungi," you know?

But once you- - That's a good point.

- Once you kill it, you know, it won't be a problem.

And you know, there are a lot of fungicides that will do the trick, chlorothalonil, ziram, ferbam, fixed copper, bordeaux.

You know, there's a lot of fungicides that will do the trick, but that will be the only way that you will not have that problem in the future.

- Okay, but yeah.

- But once you've got, most diseases, once you've got that disease, it stays there, and your best hope is to prevent it from spreading.

Your best hope is to prevent it from ever occurring, and that's why we go with preventative fungicide applications.

- That's right.

- And that's why, you know, that's why we go, we use cover sprays on fruits, and that's why cover sprays on pecans and then on roses and whatever, you know, whatever.

It's timing and then putting the right product out there at the right time.

- And those preventative fungicides, again, could be the ones you just listed for us, right?

- Right.

- The fixed coppers and chlorothalonil.

- Right, just check the label.

- Check the label.

- The disease will be on the label of the fungicide that's out there.

[gentle country music] - "I bought a peach tree online, "and it quickly started to get purple-colored spots "on the leaves and stem.

"Now it has worsened, and almost every leaf has it, "and they have yellow edges as well.

Please help me save my peach."

And this is Dua from Sicklerville, New Jersey.

All right.

So can we help her, Dr. Kelly?

- Yeah, I think we can tell her what the problem is, but it's really hard to control the disease called bacterial spot.

- Oh, yes it is.

- In the homeowner situation.

- Yes, it is.

- If she's a big orchard grower, you know, there's chemicals and things, but it's hard, but we think it's bacterial spot from the pictures and the description, 'cause it'll have a little shot hole where the- - Exactly.

- The tissue would die out, and it'll be little holes through the leaves.

and I think we saw that on the leaves.

- We definitely saw that and those leaves, of course look tattered and torn.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you can get, not to say that you couldn't probably save that one, but what you can do is to maybe prune it out, open it up a little bit so that it will dry quickly when you have wet weather because it is a bacterial infection.

And you can use resistant varieties if this one does pass on to glory.

There's some cultivars that are resistant to bacterial spot, when I did a little research.

And one of 'em is The Belle of Georgia, which is an old, old variety and Southaven and Redhaven.

- Yeah, I know both of those.

- And those are just a few, but remove debris, the leaves when they fall.

- Yeah, good sanitation.

- Get rid of all of that, because you know, you've got the spores of the bacteria in that, so.

- That's right, and it's tough.

- Yeah, it it's hard, yeah.

- It's gonna be tough, resistant varieties, yeah, pruning.

- Maybe if you can get rid of all of it this winter and put fresh mulch, prune it out, you know, while it's dormant.

- Good air circulation.

- And maybe, you know, it won't be so bad next year.

- Right, yeah, and I would say, Dua, go to your local Extension Office.

They probably have a publication.

- They probably, they do.

- There's probably a spray guide.

You know, 'cause I can hear Mr. D. in my head saying, "Peaches, plums, and nectarines need to be on a spray schedule.

- They do, they definitely do, 'cause they are so prone to disease and insects in the Mid-South.

- They definitely are.

They definitely are, so Dua, yeah, go to your local Extension Office there and get that spray guide, that'll help you out.

- Now, I think you can get a dormant spray of some kind of copper.

- You can, you can.

- And spray that.

As a homeowner, you could do that.

- You can definitely do that.

- During the dormant season, and that will help, you know, with maybe it coming back out in the spring looking a little better maybe.

- Right, so yeah, right.

Copper-based fungicide, you can definitely do.

Just read and follow the label on that, of course.

- Right.

- And I think you'll be just fine.

Yeah, picking up that spray guide, yeah, that'll help you out.

- Yeah, that'll help.

That'll help a great deal.

- That's for sure.

[gentle country music] - "My eight-year-old peach tree "has been having problems the last few years.

"Blossoms and leaves are only on the top third of the tree.

"I get very little fruit, too.

"I do get new shoots from the bottom half each year, "but not until later in the year.

"Why does only the top third of my peach tree "get leaves and blossoms?

Thanks," and this is RBM Cobra on YouTube.

So what do we think about that one?

Yeah, just the top third.

- I have a couple of questions, you know, I wonder- - Maybe nice to have a picture of that one, too, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah, I wonder how, I wonder what variety the peach tree is.

I wonder where RBM lives.

- Yeah, okay, that's fair.

- I do know that peaches aren't as long lived as some of the other fruits that are out there.

Pears and apple trees will last longer.

An eight-year-old peach tree is not an old peach tree, but it sounds like you've been having problems for the last few years.

So maybe three or four years you've been having problems.

There is a phenomena in the peach business called peach tree short life.

- Oh!

[laughing] - And it's got, there's like- - I'll bet.

- 10 or 12 different things or maybe even more now that can be a problem.

And it ranges from, you know, the wrong soil pH to the wrong variety in the wrong place, chill hours not quite being right, you know, needing a few more chill hours or getting a few, you know, a few too many chill hours, and there's a phony peach disease which spends part of its life cycle as a plum tree, it's plum leaf scald, if you've got plum trees around.

And there's just several things that all go into peach tree short life, and it sounds like that may be what you have here, and it's not just one thing.

But it sounds like you only have one peach tree, which is, they're self-pollinating.

- Self-pollinating, yeah.

- So it doesn't require two.

But if you started having problems, you know, four years, three or four years, that gives me an idea that the peach tree's not where it needs to be, that the chill hours may not be quite right.

- Okay.

- That's my guess.

- And without a picture, you know, it's really kinda hard to tell, 'cause you know, maybe look at the trunk.

You know, do we see any frass?

Could there be- - If there's borers in it- - A peach tree borer?

- If there's borers in it, it's dying, and it's dead, and it doesn't know it's dead yet, you know?

- Right, right.

- You know, I'm wondering about white peach scale, you know?

- Okay, right, right.

- That could be on, you know, certain parts of the tree, and where it is, you won't have any foliage.

But it's just, I've not seen one that blossoms and leaves are only on the top third of the tree.

- Yeah, top third, yep.

- Top third, that's just, you know, that just sounds like something, I don't know whether, can deer reach the top to the bottom two-thirds?

[Chris laughing] You know, if you got a bunch of deer, are they eating off that?

Do you have a, it's called a browse line in nature when you look out- - Yeah, I've seen that.

- and everything's wide open up to two or three feet, you know, off the ground as far as the deer can reach, you know?

I mean, do you have that or a deer problem out there, but- - Yeah, it seems like we have more, yeah, we have more questions, yeah.

So it'd be good to, you know, get a picture just so we can take a look.

- It sounds like she does get some blossoms, and I guess that tells me that they get some fruit.

But something's not right there.

- Okay.

- I would, I'd probably start with a soil test.

Make sure you pH is right, but I just have a feeling that that tree sounds like it's not where it's supposed to be.

[gentle country music] - "So we put out a new orchard in 2018.

"We have peaches, apples, and a Ayers pear "that I'd hoped would be cross-pollinated "by an old pear on the property.

"The new pear tree has never even blossomed.

"I asked the nursery where we purchased the trees "about why that might be.

"I was instructed to be sure to prune the tree "in early spring to force the blooms.

"But so far, we have no blooms.

"Why is my pear tree not blooming?

What can I do to make it bloom?"

And this is Sandra.

So this is a interesting question.

We talked about this a little earlier.

- Yeah, very interesting, and there's several things.

You know, I'm not sure where Sandra lives.

I'm not sure what zone she's in.

I do know that the Ayers pear requires only 300 chill hours, so it's a very, very low chill hour, you know, fruit.

It does very good in the southern United States, extreme southern United States.

- Right, and what do we mean by chill hours, just in case somebody- - Chill hours are the number of hours below 45 degrees that a lot of fruits have to have.

They have a set number of chill hours they have to have.

I mean, peaches are from 300, two hundred and fifty to a thousand, twelve hundred chill hours.

So you need to make sure that when you plant any fruit that you check the chill hour requirements and match them to the zone that you live in.

- Yeah, that's a good point.

- And that's very, very important with fruits especially.

Now, another thing on pears, and I've got a couple pears in my yard.

- I actually have one as well.

- And I have one that fruits very good, and I have one that doesn't fruit well at all.

And they're a little different.

They do not require very much fertilizer.

A rule of thumb on fertilizer for pear trees is 3/4 of a pound.

Now, this is from my old days at Auburn, three-quarters of a pound of triple-eight per tree per year of age up to a maximum of seven pounds for an older tree.

You never give more than a seven pounds of triple-eight, which is not very much fertilizer for an old tree- - Yeah, that's not, yeah.

- But 3/4 of a pound of triple-8 per tree per year of age.

So, if your pear tree is in your yard and you fertilize your yard, or if you're fertilizing your pear tree the same way you're fertilizing your apple trees, your peach trees, and other trees, you're giving it too much fertilizer.

- Okay, I see where you're doing.

- So it's going vegetative instead of reproductive.

- Okay.

- And that could be a problem with pears.

So you treat pears a little different.

- What about pollination?

Do they- - They do require cross-pollination, but if it's not, a bloom's not showing up, you know, pollination's not going on.

- That's right.

- But they do require cross-pollination, and you need to have a pear tree that blooms at the same time that this one is blooming.

But they're saying-- - Yeah, it's never - There's no blossom showing up, no blossoms, and so that's why, you know, I didn't, you know, but they do require cross-pollination.

And that is probably part of the problem with the pear that I have.

I have two pears.

One of them gets pollinated, probably not by the pear that's not blooming.

And I don't think it's got one blooming around within insect, honeybee flight distance that is probably blooming at the same time it blooms.

But that's very important, right, so.

- Sure, but yeah, but the fertilizing, yeah, that's, yeah, I didn't think about that.

- But that's really the only thing I can think of.

I would make sure you're not over-fertilizing.

I mean, you're fertilizing your yard heavy.

If you got a pretty yard around that pear tree, then that tells me that, you know, that could be part of your problem.

- Yeah, too much fertilizer.

- Another thing would be, you know, I doubt that it's, if you planted this tree up north, it would break, when it got its 300 chill hours, the first warm spell it had, if it's in January, it's gonna break dormancy, and it's gonna- - Which happens.

- And then it's gonna, it's probably gonna get killed, because if it's, you know, breaks dormancy and then the temperature drops to 20 degrees or 10 degrees, you know, it's probably not gonna survive up north.

So probably in a zone where the air should work.

But even a 300-hour pear up here in Tennessee, this far north, this is on the northern edge of where that zone is, could create a problem with years like we had this past year.

I mean, how many ornamentals have we seen?

How much freeze damage have we seen after last, that late freeze that we had?

- Devastated plants.

- It has been very devastating, so I don't know.

And now another thing I don't know about this, how old, okay, well, the tree is five years old.

- Yeah, it's five years old.

- The tree's five years old, okay.

I don't know how old a Ayers pear is when it starts blooming.

- Ah, okay.

- So it may need to be six or seven years old, you know, and I know there's some pecans that they've gotta have several years on 'em before they start, you know, blooming and, you know, producing fruit.

[gentle country music] - "I bought a persimmon tree about three years ago.

"The next year I got fruit.

"It's the one that looks like an apple.

"During the winter, it froze to the stump.

"The next year, small branches shot up "and made about eight fruits, "but they all fell off.

"This year, I covered it during the frost.

"My persimmon branches have lots of flowers and small fruits, "but they're beginning to fall off.

What should I do?"

This is Jean from Ocala, Florida.

- Ah, interesting.

- Ah, from Florida, growing persimmon, how about that?

So what do you think about that?

It's a interesting question.

- Yeah, well- - Yeah.

It actually froze to the stump, I'm just realizing, in Florida.

- Yeah, yeah, that's- - How about that?

- That's pretty, yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- 'Cause we have some that live as perennial trees here.

So that's interesting.

- Yeah, it is.

- That froze to the stump, but it's got a lot of blooms and fruit that's falling off.

- It's falling off.

- You know, it could be that, several things, but one thing comes to mind is if it's got that many flowers and fruit on it, the tree might not be able to, you know, finish off, you know, going to ripening all of that fruit, and it might be just self-pruning itself, 'cause it can't support all of that.

That's one thing that comes to mind.

And the other thing is maybe it's, I mean, what kind of, I'm curious as why it would've died to the ground.

Is it an area that it doesn't like too much?

Like, is it too wet, or is it too dry?

I mean, why is there a stump there?

Because like I said, most persimmons are trees, and they live, so I don't know why it died.

- So you have more questions.

- I have more questions.

- For Ms. Jean.

- It could be the environment that it's in.

- Yeah, so it could be environmental factors, and you know, of course my, you know, my mind goes immediately to, was it fertilized?

Could it be too much nitrogen fertilizer?

- Oh, that's true.

- Or could it be, you know, too wet, right?

'Cause yeah, the persimmon, what, maybe three years old?

- Yeah, that's not very old.

- Maybe it needs to, you know, use all of its energy to develop the root system, you know, instead of trying to ripen the fruit.

- True.

- So I'm just thinking about environmental factors.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And I wouldn't let all of those, if it's coming up from the stump, I wouldn't let every single one of those stalks stay.

I would pick a few, 'cause you know, it's gonna get bigger.

- Right, right.

- Each one of 'em is gonna get bigger, and you don't want 'em to grow together and you want the fruits to produce larger fruits.

So I would pick three and keep the best three that hopefully are evenly spaced around the stump so that it has room to grow.

- Right, right, but yeah, just more questions.

- Yeah, more questions.

- But I mean, those are things that come to my mind anytime I hear about fruit trees dropping, you know, their fruit.

All right, so yeah, so Ms. Jean, thank you much, and maybe a picture, you know?

- Yeah, a picture.

- I would've loved to have seen a picture of that one, yeah.

- And maybe she can contact her local agriculture Extension service.

- Sure, sure.

- And they could come out and help her.

- Sure, yeah, they do a good job there at Florida Extension, so that would be a good recommendation.

So yeah, contact your local Extension agent, Ms. Jean.

See if they can come out and help you out with that.

[gentle country music] "I have mango and naseberry trees "that have black soot on the leaves.

"How do I get rid of the black coating?

"I tried soapy water "with all the natural ingredients without success.

I would appreciate any assistance."

And this is Grace from central Florida.

So can you provide Grace with some assistance, Celeste?

- So this is kind of going back to what we talked about at the beginning of this episode with the black sooty mold forming on that honeydew, and so probably aphids or some other soft-bodied insect, right, that is feeding with that piercing, sucking-type mouthparts and creating that black sooty mold.

So you know, they've tried soap, which was a good first attempt, right, because it is an insect that is causing this.

You know, most people probably would go first to thinking that it was a fungal, you know, issue or something like that.

So that was a good first attempt.

But those soft-bodied insects can be so hard to control sometimes.

- Yes, yes.

- And so bumping up to some other types of products that are gonna be a little more broad spectrum is probably gonna be the way to go to help with getting those insects controlled.

And then also I would caution them to beware after they do that first application to come back 7 to 10 laters, seven to ten days later and do it again, because oftentimes those pests will have, it'll control the adult forms, but maybe it doesn't control the egg form.

And so, you know, 7 to 10 days later, you've got a whole new crop of adults.

- That's right.

- So folks can be using a product and think it's ineffective, but maybe they just didn't use it often enough for it to be effective.

So I see a couple different avenues for them to go there.

They could stick with the soap if they wanna, you know, do least impact type kind of things with sequential applications.

Then bump it up to maybe some oils, horticultural oils would be maybe the next.

And then possibly look at some permethrin-type products.

- All right, yeah, read and follow the label.

Repeat application, folks.

It's definitely gonna be that, for sure.

- And one thing I would say is sometimes we'll see recipes for, you know, like I would suggest that it be an insecticidal soap.

- Right, right.

- You know, rather than something that's formulated- - Dish soap.

- Right, yep, yep.

- Right, right.

- Yeah, and I know that's what you were thinking.

I just wanted to throw that in there.

- No, no, that's good.

- 'Cause sometimes there's some homemade recipes that may not provide the efficacy that we would hope.

- Good clarification there.

We don't wanna be going out there and like spraying bubbles of Joy.

- No, we definitely don't wanna do that, yeah.

Yeah, there's a difference between detergents and soaps, right, so we definitely wanna be careful.

But yeah, can you get rid of the black sooty mold coating, though?

'Cause that's usually a question we get.

You know, I know Mother Nature kind of has to help you out with that.

- To help weather it off.

It'll naturally get weathered off, you know, eventually, if the plant is an outside plant.

Now, if we're talking about houseplants, you might need to help that along with- - Yeah, you probably need to clean it.

- Yeah.

- And I think that depends a lot on the size of the plant and the location and that sort of thing.

- Even maybe they have this mango, I don't know, maybe it's in a greenhouse.

Then it would need some cleaning to try to help get that off and so the leaves can do photosynthesis.

If they're all covered up with black sooty mold, they're not gonna be as efficient.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us a email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for sending in the questions.

Hopefully we gave you some good information that can help you this spring.

To learn more about anything we talked about today, go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

At the site, we have lots of information about growing fruit and how to take care of common problems.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]