Pests & Diseases

While you may not notice symptoms of peach leaf curl until the spring, you should manage it in the fall and winter. Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease that primarily affects peach and nectarine trees.

After years of drought, we welcome rain in California. But we also recognize that rain can help spread a number of plant diseases. Rain and wind can splash bacteria and fungi from infected leaves, branches, and blossoms to uninfected parts of the tree.

Spring is just around the corner and many types of fruit trees are starting to develop their leaves. If you are growing peaches or nectarines and are now seeing symptoms of peach leaf curl on new leaves, unfortunately it's too late to manage the disease.

Springtime planting is almost here but don't rush to plant seeds until the soil has warmed up! Planting seeds too soon, when the soil is cold and wet, risks losing them to damping-off, a disease caused by fungi and oomycetes in the soil.

Healthy Soils Week (Dec. 4-8) is a week-long initiative by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to highlight the importance of soil health throughout California. Healthy soils can improve crop yields, sequester carbon, reduce erosion, and increase biodiversity.

Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease that only affects peach and nectarine trees. The fungus causes distorted, reddened leaves to appear on the tree in the spring.

Sudden oak death (SOD) is a disease syndrome that has killed millions of native oak trees (Figure 1) along the west coast of the United States, from Big Sur in California up to Southern Oregon.

Have you been seeing a lot of defoliated sycamore trees recently? Sparse foliage and early leaf drop on sycamore trees might be due to anthracnose. The cool, wet spring in many parts of California provided the perfect conditions for this disease.

An immense amount of rain has fallen across California in recent weeks. While rain is incredibly beneficial, in excess it can cause serious problems. The continued wet conditions opens the door for many pests, so see the list of dos and don'ts below for common wet weather pest prevention tips.

Abiotic plant disorders are generally caused by environmental conditions, rather than microorganisms. They are sometimes called noninfectious diseases. Abiotic disorders can develop if a plant's needs are not being met.