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Why Are My Peach Tree Leaves Turning Red? (5 Possible Reasons)

Why Are My Peach Tree Leaves Turning Red? (5 Possible Reasons)

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Being lucky enough to have peach trees in your yard is a real treat. If you take care of them well, you’re going to be able to enjoy delicious peaches every year.

You likely love your peach trees quite a bit, but it’ll be quite a shock if you walk outside one day and discover that the leaves have turned red.

What can cause this, and is it an indication that something is seriously wrong? Read on to learn more about what this mean as well as what you need to do.

1 – It Might Be Trying to Go Dormant

It’s possible that your peach tree might be trying to go dormant. Peach trees will start to go dormant when it gets too cold, but you might be concerned if it isn’t the right time of the year for that.

Try to think about whether there has been a cold snap or something like that recently. Did anything happen that could shock your tree into trying to go dormant?

If you had an oddly cold night or two during the waning months of summer, that could be enough to send it into early dormancy. When this is the case, it might not be anything to worry about too much.

There might not be anything you can do, and if it’s fairly close to autumn, you likely shouldn’t be too worried. However, if it’s much earlier in the year, you can try to coax it back with some fertilizer to see what happens.

Some people have reported having good luck getting things back to normal with fertilizer, but others have said that it does nothing. It might depend on what is truly going on with your tree, and there are still other things to consider.

2 – There Might Be Nothing Wrong at All

Peach Tree With Red Leaves

In the best-case scenario, there might be nothing wrong at all with your peach tree. Sometimes stuff like this can just happen, and seeing the leaves turn red might not be too unusual in your area.

There are people who care for peach trees who say that having the leaves turn red isn’t unusual at all. It just seems to happen in some locations and it doesn’t appear to cause the tree any harm.

That isn’t to say that red leaves can’t be a sign of something bad. It’s just possible that everything is fine if the tree appears to be healthy enough.

If the tree looks like it’s wilting or if the leaves have holes in them, something else could be wrong. You’ll need to remain vigilant and try to check things out if something seems amiss.

3 – Diseases and Pests

Diseases and pests could be the cause of your red leaves. There are many types of diseases that can cause peach tree problems, and you might need to try to determine what’s going on.

The most common diseases that you’ll need to worry about with peach trees will be fungal infections. Thankfully, problems like this can be solved by treating the peach tree with a fungicide.

Insects can cause them to have issues as well, and if an infection is bad enough, it could stress the tree. When a peach tree is stressed, its leaves might wind up changing colors.

If you have an infestation, you’ll likely want to treat the tree with insecticide to get rid of any pests. It might be good to identify the pest first to know what you’re dealing with, but if you’re sure it’s a pest that’s the problem, an insecticide is the way to go.

Peach tree borers are common pests that bother these trees. It could be that pest or it might be another type of pest entirely.

The important thing to remember is that you need to take steps to care for your tree in case something is wrong. Be observant and try to do what you can to solve any problems.

4 – Excessive Rain

Peach Tree After Heavy Rain

Even something like excessive rain could cause your peach tree to become stressed. Has it been raining a lot in your area recently?

If you’ve had several inches of rainfall in the area, maybe your tree has been watered too much lately. You could have even accidentally watered it too much yourself and caused it some stress.

Too much water winds up being a bad thing and the same thing can be said for most other trees and plants. It could be that the leaves changing colors like this is just a sign of stress.

Try letting the tree dry out a little if possible so that it can bounce back. If rainfall is the issue, you might be able to take steps to protect it from rain until it has the chance to dry out some.

Admittedly, this could be kind of annoying to do, but it might be a good idea anyway. This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to pay attention to precipitation data and to know exactly how much water peach trees are supposed to get on average.

A young peach tree needs to receive one to two gallons of water each week. Once it has matured, it’s going to take the same amount of water approximately every 10 days.

You don’t want to water it before checking the soil, though. The soil should be evenly moist, but it should never be sopping wet.

If the soil is too wet, you should wait to water the tree. You can’t control nature and whether it’s going to rain, but you can do your best to keep an eye on rainfall to understand how much water the tree has been receiving.

5 – Overly Warm Weather

You might not expect that warm weather could do any harm, but excessively warm weather might cause your tree stress. If you have experienced a heatwave in recent weeks, the color change of the leaves might be in response to that.

It’s hard to say for sure whether the hot weather is to blame, but if nothing else seems to explain what is going on, that could certainly be it if the meteorological data shows that it has been way too hot.

You don’t really have anything that you can do to change the weather, but your tree will likely be fine once the weather stabilizes. Keep caring for the tree as normal and ensure that it is getting enough water.

Keep Taking Care of Your Peach Tree

Keep taking care of your peach tree so that you can avoid further issues. It isn’t always simple to determine why the leaves are turning red, but you can try to troubleshoot based on the information above.

Hopefully, you’ll find the exact cause and will be able to move forward from there. If you’re still left guessing as to what’s going on, maybe everything will be fine.

People have noted that they’ve had peach tree leaves turn red and nothing bad has happened. It could be something that you need to address, but it also might not be anything much to worry about.

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