How to grow peaches in a biological way

How to grow peaches in a biological way

The organic cultivation of peach (Prunus persica) is one of the most complex and delicate. Both for the delicacy of the plant but also for many errors that are made with this crop. The principles that we will adopt are similar both that we will cultivate the real peaches, the nectarines (those with smooth peel) and the percoche.
The basic criteria for cultivation are: temperate climate, without late frosts and possibly characterized by frequent and constant breezes; medium-textured soils with excellent drainage and not calcareous (or slightly calcareous); water available for irrigation.

For the plant we recommend plants already grafted and with grafts suitable for your type of soil (be advised by an agronomist), to be placed in holes of at least 70 cm per side and where they were placed about 5-6 kg of compost or better still, mature beef manure. Place the peach collar about 10 cm above ground level and lightly cover the ground covering the hole and irrigate immediately. For the period of implantation I recommend that which precedes the spring. For the sixth I recommend the one in the framework 5 x 5. For pollination, being the pesco autofertile, you do not require different varieties but it is important (even more in organic) particular attention to insecticides also of natural origin (such as pyrethrum ) that can disturb bees.
For irrigation this is always necessary especially in the first years and in any case from May until September. It is preferable to drip and if you can mulch you get a control of the herbs and a minor evapotranspiration.
For annual fertilization it is advisable to replenish the asparagus with compost or mature manure integrated by the ash obtained from the burning of the branches (a technique that eliminates above all the spores of the peach bubble).
For the form of breeding the most recommended is the vase obtained with a cut about 70 cm from the ground of the stem and making develop the three strongest jets and arranged at 120 ° from each other. For annual pruning, this must be constant, light, tending to aerate the center and removing in winter the branches that have already produced. For pruning, however, it is good to read more about it. For the harvest it is emphasized that this is scalar is that the fruit should be harvested when the ripening is not excessive as some organoleptic characteristics overcome this phase decrease.
The most frequent peach plant diseases are: the peach bubble, the corineus or pitting, the monilia and the oidium. If the infections are mild, the horsetail macerate can be used; in more acute conditions it is possible to use calcium polysulphide (which is also effective with powdery mildew). In green farming, green copper is also allowed (to be avoided as long as possible) against bubble, pitting and monilia and sulfur against powdery mildew.
Among the insects I remember the aphids (use Marseilles soap or, better still, the nettle macerate), the fruit fly, the Cydia molesta, the Anarsia and the white cochineal. For the fly you can build the appropriate traps, while against Cydia and Anarsia is effective the use of Bacillus thuringiensis, natural and tolerated by man. For cochineal this can be kept already at bay with the same calcium polysulfide or, if this is not used, with natural white oil.