I see that Miller sells a peach called "Curl Free". I don't know much about it though.

-Little John

I think raintree sells that one too.

Peach leaf curl is controlled with a dormant season spray(s). Most folks use a copper powder with water. Copper is rated organic.

Borers live one season. Moths (re)attack wild sickly diseased trees. Orchard practices control Peach Tree Borer. Grow trees in full sun and prune to open center. Clean up rotten fruit and diseased branches. You can apply wood ashes, mothballs or window screens in early summer.

I agree w/ Ace. Peach leaf curl is easily controlled. If you are strictly against any sprays there are a number of PLC free varieties. Indian free, Q-1-8, Muir, Frost, Charlotte, Avalon, Autumn Rose. Burnt Ridge nursery lists a separate category for PLC free varieties in their catalog. Most of the major problems with PLC seem to come from west coast folks in places where they get lots of rain and have moist cool springs, like west WA. Quite frankkly, I'm surprised you're having such a time with it. Hman is right in your neck of the woods. If he has any advice on the subject, I'd consider it as well.

An alternative option is to take a method from fig growers, who bundle up their trees to protect them from cold. The difference is that you can bundle up peaches to protect them from rain. I live in W. Washington and peach leaf curl is rampant.

It takes using small pruned, or genetic dwarf, peach trees like Ponderosa (Or is it Bonanza?) or Honey Babe or Garden Gold (My varieties). I bundle up the branches with twine, each major branch being one bundle. Then I cover each bundle with a white plastic trash bag "sheath" and tie that in place as well.

Keeping the rain off the buds, prevents peach leaf curl spores from getting into the buds and growing.

I've sprayed the bundles before covering with copper spray but not sure if it's necessary.

The bundling needs to be done in November. Then in February, I remove the trash bags and unbundle. I watch for when buds begin to swell, then remove the bags.

This technique changed my peach loss from almost 100% to an overabundance of peaches. Only a few leaves were infected wtih leaf curl.

I also did this with a Tri-lite peachplum, which is not genetic dwarf but is small. It worked for that as well. I plan to keep it pruned small so that the bundling is reasonably easy.

Wow, is that really less work than spraying?

Carla in Sac

"Is that less work than spraying" - no, it's more work. But some of us like to grow organically, and protecting from rain seems to work. The copper spray is considered organic, but I don't want to overuse that either and have copper build up in the soil.