Initial and subsequent yield reduction of peach trees affected by peach rosette and decline disease

Abstract

Fruit yields were compared in the orchard between symptomless peach trees and trees naturally affected with peach rosette and decline (PRD). Trees not affected with PRD yielded three times the crop, by weight, obtained from trees affected for the first season and six times that of trees affected for the second season. Individually affected limbs on otherwise symptomless trees produced 15 per cent of the crop obtained from limbs on unaffected trees. The crop from apparently symptomless limbs on newly affected trees was only 46 per cent of that obtained from limbs on trees not showing symptoms of PRD. It was calculated that the yield of fruit from an affected peach orchard was reduced by 13.2 per cent five years after the disease was first detected in the planting.