Dwarf Peach Tree Pests

Healthy peaches should not have any freckles or wormholes.

Dwarf peach trees take up little room in the home garden but can produce big shows of beautiful flowers and delicious fruit. Disease, insects and animals can attack dwarf peach trees and ruin the fruit or kill the tree.

Insect Pests

Check the leaves and branches of your dwarf peach tree regularly for insects or signs of insect damage. Use proper fertilization and an insecticide or pheromone trap to repel aphids and peach tree borers. Tent caterpillars build large nests from which to go out and eat your tree's foliage. Apply Bacillus thuringiensis if you spot the bugs while they are still small. Plum curculio worms eat their way into the center of peach fruit, ruining it. Spray with Sevin or Malathion.

Diseases

Peach leaf curl causes leaf spot and cankers on dwarf peach trees. Prune infected areas and fertilize. Prune out black knot, which causes galls on branches, and powdery mildew, which causes a white, dusty-looking coating on leaves. Prune out infected branches. Use a fungicide spray to prevent peach scab and brown rot.

Animal Predation

To keep hungry birds from sampling the fruit of your tree's labors, cover the tree from top to bottom with bird netting. This will also prevent deer, squirrels and other wildlife from snacking on the fruit.

References

• University of Florida IFAS Extension: Prunus persica Peach Fact Sheet; Edward F. Gilman, et al.; October 1994
• Texas A&M University Archives: Peach
• Texas A&M University Extension: Herman Auer Answers Your Questions on Peaches and Plums; Herman Auer
• West Virginia University: Peach Scab
• University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension: Home Fruit Spray Schedule; Alan T. Eaton, et al.; June 2010

Resources

• Michigan State University Horticulture Extension: Common Tree Fruit Insects; Mark Longstroth
• University of Georgia Department of Entomology: Viruses of Peach; Simon W. Scott