That's a disease

Some kind of blight or the dread "peach x" disease maybe?

But looks very similar to Nitrogen deficiency. Increase nitrogen and spray for disease just to be on the safe side.

It looks a lot like the X disease. I had it on a nectarine once.

Had to send it to the State Ag lab to find out what it was.

Many of my peaches and nectarines look exactly like that early in the season. It happens when the weather bounces back and forth between hot and cold. I suspect that the cold weather prevents the roots from delivering adequate nutrients to the leaves. New leaves stop displaying the symptom when the cold days stop.

It looks like it could be a case of nitrogen deficiency in the soil too. I personally wouldn't spray for any diseases unless you can positively identify what it is.

A three pronged approach might help you. Get a soil test done, send several leaves for analysis and while waiting, use a cheap kit to ck for nitrogen problems.

There are some cheap kits out there that you can use to quickly find out if you have problem. They are not quite accurate but will give you at least an indication of a problem by changing the color of water that is mixed with some soil (and a pill). You could get that done while waiting for a formal soil test that might also alert you about other mineral defficiencies. If you are low on nitrogen, you could be low on other minerals so the real soil test is a must have and it should be done every few years (5-8 more or less; maybe more frequent if growing fruits). I would indicate in the soil test that you are trying to grow peaches in the area so they know something else besides the request to test the soil.

The suggestion to take a sample of a few leaves in a transparent, plastic, well sealed envelope for analysis at your Agric Extension Service is also a good one.

In this way, you end up adding whatever is truly necessary (minerals, disease sprays, etc) and no more.

That is bacterial spot. It is perhaps the most common peach leaf disease in the east and midwest. You can tell its not X disease because its spots. X disease has irregular shaped damage. Bacterial spot takes on many different appearances depending on the weather, tree maturity, etc so it can be hard to ID. But I have seen many versions of it over the years. At this point you can do either a weak copper spray or daconil. You are at the very end of the window to spray copper.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: bacterial spot picture like yours

I agree w/ Scott. The affected leaves on your tree will develop holes where the purple spots are giving the classic "shot hole" appearance. If they are very affected the leaves will drop. Fruit will also develop spots, and if it's bad enough, the fruit will crack.

Daconil has no effect on bac. spot, so your only option is copper or oxytet. I use Flameout (oxytet) on a couple of highly susc. varieties. However, treatment is supposed to begin after shuck-split. You may be a little late for best treatment.

I eventually plan to remove the highly susc. varieties. There are plenty of varieties out there that are highly resistant and it's a pain to spray for.

I'm curious, what variety is pictured?

Thanks for all the replies, I'll take the advice and drop a few samples off that the ag extension office and see if I can get a proper ID. The cultivar is challenger I have 15 and all are showing some sign, I have my fingers crossed that the problem is bacterial spot or nitrogen deficiency not the dreaded peach "X" disease. My soil is very heavy clay with almost no organic material, so I've been relying on inorganic fertilizer and the crazy weather we've had has to be messing with the nitrogen uptake. This afternoon I'll hit it with a light spray of copper.

One thing to note. This row of trees, the challenger cultivar grew much faster and had a better branch structure than all of the other 12 types I have in my orchard.
Thanks for all of the advice!

Please when you get the results back post them here to let us know! Good Luck.

On a side note. I do notice my peach leaves get that every year but in very small areas. It eventually goes away or never seems to spread. It has never been as large as what you show though.

http://ucanr.org/sites/fruitreport/Nutrition_-_Fertilization/Individual_Nutrients/Nitrogen/?repository=27129

Update: It was a nitrogen deficiency, 100 pounds later things are growing great!

I still think you had bacterial spot. It often fades as the summer progresses. In any case I am glad your tree is better!

Scott

I dont know, it almost looks EXACTLY the same as my trees. My peach trees also pick up in the late spring after a good feeding and the spots go away and the leaves and new growth are huge and green. It also happened to a different peach tree of mine that I transplanted from a pot. As I was moving it from the pot to the hole in the ground a big chunk of dirt fell off taking alot of new root growth with it. After I planted it in the ground the same exact spots appeared but after a few months and a feeding they went away and are growing healthy and green. But to be on the safe side next year I would spray copper at the proper time around or before shuck split just in case it is bacterial spot. Too bad bacterial spot looks almost EXACTLY as nitrogen deficiency and root damage.

It could in fact be the same thing, plants that are not happy are more susceptible to diseases. I was having significant bacterial spot problems but when I thinned the trees out enough they generally got more happy and less bacterial spot.

Scott

The reason I concurred with Scott that the peach had bac. spot (and still do) is that although N deficient peach trees can develop red spots on the foliage, so does bac. spot. Bac. spot is much more common than N deficiency on peach. Around here people plant peach trees in the ground that's not been fertilized and I've never noticed N deficiency on these unmanaged peach trees. These peach trees are stressed from wet feet, but not N deficient.

Additionally, the above pictures don't seem to show other symptoms of N deficiency (lots of red foliage with green veins) which would be somewhat surprising if it was N deficiency.

Below is a link to Clemson with several pictures of N deficiency on peach trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Clemson N deficiency of peach

Hellow all, I've been down for a while but not out, fortunately.

From my work in vegetables I know that the position of the affected leaves is paramount in deficiency diagnosis, is that the case with fruit trees also? For example, maybe interveinal chlorosis of peach leaves at and near shoot tips but none on the leaves below on a branch (or shoot)would indicate Fe deficiency as opposed to only finding that chlorosis down lower on the branches and none at the tip leaves.
Olpea, thanks for the link, it didn't indicate anything about leaf position as I wrote above and I couldn't discern much about that from the photos, maybe it is irrelevant:)