By Clint Thompson
Management of phony peach disease remains simple for Southeast growers – destroy the infected tree before it becomes more of a problem than it already is.
Phil Brannen, University of Georgia (UGA) Cooperative Extension fruit disease specialist, said in a prior interview that the disease is caused by a bacteria and reduces production to nearly zero. The tree is stunted, and over time, will eventually die.
Brannen discussed the disease further, including the unfortunate management tactic that growers must implement if it’s observed in the orchard.
“Phony peach continues to be an issue that’s caused by a bacterium that gets into the xylem and basically kills the plant over time,” Brannen said. “But as long as we can identify it early when a plant is infected and we can see the symptoms, we’ll go ahead and kill that plant, pull it up and get rid of it. As long as we do that, we can maintain production. If we did not do that, if we allowed those plants to remain in the orchard and we did not destroy them, it would be a terrible problem.
“It’s one of those things where we live with it, we lose a percentage of our plants every year to phony peach. It’s one of those things that we just live with it, and we expect that we’re going to lose maybe a percent or so of plants every year that we have to identify and take out of the orchard.”