Newly planted peach trees droppped all the leaves

[grooveman]

HI all, We planted two young peach trees in our back yard in March, and within a month all the leaves had developed these reddish rust colored spots and fell off the trees. They were green and healthy looking when we purchased them and had loads of developing fruit on the branches.
We have a heavy clay soil here so the guy recommended that we dig a large hole, and add a peat soil mix at the base and all around the root ball, which we did. They also received plenty of water, maybe too much due to all the rain we have had in Houston lately. I had also sprayed the trees with a fungicide before the leaves dropped.

I am just wondering if I should pull them up and return them to the nursery of wait to see if they come back.

[Algida]

Hi, What fungicide did you use? Was it copper-based?

[grooveman]

The fungicide I used is Daconil. I did check the limbs, they are still green for the most part. Although there are some small twigs on the main branches that appear to be dead. Should I prune them off?

[JONA]

Hi grooveman
It sounds like Shothole to me.
Look it up and see if it's what your leaves looked like.
Copper sprays in autumn and in the spring as the buds break will control it.

[told2b]

Shot hole symptoms on leaves of peach (left), almond, apricot, and Catalina cherry (right).

[Lindsaylew82]

Could just be nitrogen deficiency.

[Lindsaylew82]

Also, did you use peat, or peat soil mix? Did you mix in some of the clay into it?

We have hard red clay here. Had to take a pitchfork and fracture the clay when we planted our trees. It basically acted like a huge clay pot. Didn't drain at all. Until we fixed our drainage issues, we had symptoms of overwatering. Which looked a little like the nitrogen deficiency...

[grooveman]

I am thinking that it could be over watering. We did not mix any clay into the peat manure mix that the nursery recommended. I just dog a hole about twice the size of the root balls, and dumped the mixture under and all around it. We watered them almost daily after they were planted, and we had a lot of rain in April and May.

[Lindsaylew82]

Can you post some pictures of your leaves?

[grooveman]

The leaves are no longer on the trees except for a couple at the very top of the tree. But they looked exactly like the first pic you posted above.

[grooveman]

I would like to bump this thread to get another opinion on the trees which lost all their leaves back in May. There has been no new growth on these trees at all in the past few months which makes me think they may not come back. How can I tell if the trees are dead? Should I prune them? Or just leave them alone and see what happens next Spring.
Thanks for your input!

[!potatoes!]

scratch a couple twigs with a fingernail and see if there's green underneath the bark. if yes, try to just wait it out - unless you plan on trying to fix your drainage issue.

with no leaves, the trees probably need no supplemental water at all, fwiw. hope you're not still watering.