By Bezandy
United Kingdom 
Our donut peach tree is now 3 years old and is producing fruit for the first time. Pretty obviously it has developed leaf curl will this affect the fruit, we did use a copper based antifungal spray in November 2011, is there anything we can use now while fruit is on tree? Will the fruit be affected by this?
2 Jun, 2012
Answers
Thankyou very much for the helpful information, we will take your advice.
Andrew Rose
6 Jun, 2012
You CAN spray a copper fungicide while the fruit are there but it is probably not advisable, more because it could damage the fruit rather than be a threat to human health. Normally a peach tree will recover from p.l.c. and produce a new flush of leaves later in the summer. As a consequence you may lose some of the fruit which will drop, but we find many remain.
For the future, the time to spray is in early spring before the blossoms open as a preventative measure. If the tree is small enough, and at three years old it should be, put a cover over it for winter, such as a polythene sheet suspended on a 'roof', and this should prevent the fungal disease by keeping rain off.
We have a peach tree against a south facing wall and this never gets it while all the trees in the garden in the open often do.
5 Jun, 2012