nettle spray

[nellynelly]

has anyone used fermented nettle spray to control peach leaf curl?

would it be ok to use if the tree has set fruit?

i am looking for a natural solution, any success stories out there?

thanks

 

[chooks4life]

Never even heard of fermented nettle never mind using it to control peach leaf curl. As far as I know, nettle is a potent conditioner and nourishes rather than disinfects. What causes the curl? If it's fungi, mould, pest or something like that perhaps a more insecticidal or fungicidal herb would be best? If it's a deficiency disease then I guess nettle would be a great one to try but wouldn't it be better off in the soil?

I don't know. There sure are a lot of options. Assuming you also have a good few branches to try on, why not experiment? Neem's a great allpurpose sort of plant.

I'll be interested to see how you go with this nettle thing or anything else you try.

Best wishes.

 

[nellynelly]

it is a fungus thing.do you know of a good anti fungal plant?

will keep you posted on the effectiveness of the nettle.

 

[chooks4life]

Antifungals... Garlic and most things in the Allium family, Neem, Citrus family, actually quite a few things are antifungal. I did a little search just now and found these for starters:
Quote: If you're interested in buying an authoritative, current source of scientifically validated information, this book would be a good start, but of course they expect you to buy it, not read for free:
Quote: But there are lots of old books with the same info, or most of it, even if they don't cite all the studies this one does. Information on plants for antifungal usage has been around for quite a while as you no doubt know, even though it became a 'cool' thing to scoff at in mainstream medicine/science/agriculture for a while. I intend to buy that book in the last link I showed you.

This has more info and links to more pages of info as well...
Quote: Quote: And this one has more info in the links to the right of the sample bit of info as well.
Quote: As far as I know, healthy plants of all species must have some level of natural antifungal defense in them to survive at all, so that's worth considering. I would think perhaps your peach tree is of a weak cultivar, or is malnourished, or something like that, in order to fall victim to a fungal infection.

Best wishes.

 

[nellynelly]

thanks for the good information (sorry for the delay). we live in an odd climate, on the equator and at ~10,000 feet. we get rain year around (1-6"/month), and a couple hard freezes/year. but we also get the intense sun of the tropics. so yeah, extreme to say the least. we can grow lettuce to zucs, and everything in between year round.

we get 3 peach harvests ever 2 years. we can make our own "seasons" with pruning. we are in a transition of low spray trees to organic.

i tried my nettle spray. i used straight diluted nettle for some rows, nettle and neem oil, and nettle with banking soda. so far, i do not see any difference in the three sprays. but overall, the leaf curl has been really mild this year (it has been dry). i would say, on less than 0.5% of the trees.

i have another batch fermenting, and am going to spray again in a few days.

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks for the reply, no worries about the delay lol . I hope it works for you. It's helpful of you to share the results, so thanks again. I don't have peach trees but I'd like stonefruit orchards in future and you can never learn too much in advance.

Best wishes.