I have been told that if you plant parsley around stone fruit trees they don't get curly leaf. Has anyone heard of this and is it so? I am going to try it anyway as I like parsley and I figure it can't harm. Parsley is something I like to graze on as i walk around the garden and as it is high in iron I think my grazing habit is probably a good one to indulge.
if you can get it to grow i'm sure it won't hurt. i love it too as i also like cilantro, dill, fennel, carrots, radish (sprouts), and many other edibles. doesn't hurt to try and any that take increases the diversity. just be wary that some can go kinda wild and crazy (dill, fennel) but i really like the flower tops, they have a lot of flavor... i haven't heard anything of this particular effect.
Curly leaf disease is caused by a fungus, Taphrina deformans. While it is possible that some exudates from parsley might inhibit the spores of Taphrina deformans from blooming it is not likely it would prevent an outbreak when conditions for the spores to bloom are right. This is usually when there is high moisture present along with temps in the 60 -70 f range. A better method of control would be to rake up and remove all leaf debris along with pruning of infected branches. This material should be taken away and burned or doused in chlorine bleach to kill the spores and fungus. For early prevention I like to use multi plantings of aromatic, oil producing herbs, they seem to help but if the conditions get right the spores will bloom. I have also tried using sacrificial plants to see if I could redirect spore bloom, it was a failure since the fruit trees still got some infection. My best results were to dry the leaves after rains along with keeping the ground covers short until the leaves were fully developed. To dry the leaves quickly after rains I keep the branches separated and occasionally use a fan to move air through the trees to remove moisture before the spores have a chance to bloom.
Good thing to know about some information regarding parsley. For one thing, I was thinking to grow some of them in our farm. I don't know on how to plant it perfectly then I found this article on "How to grow parsley?" I'm sharing it to you, you might be interested to know more.
Bryant, you have not seen the soil community deal with fungal spores? if you can burn such things and turn them into biochar and get some woodgas from them i would call that at least only a mild letdown. i try to burn as little as possible. i want all my organic goodies going towards feeding the soil community and we don't tolerate smoke of any kind well at all (i'm envious of those who can play with such things as i did have fun making charcoal once and would love to cook outside once in while using a rocket stove and to be able to make biochar and woodgas). so i bury things that might be iffy or potentially diseased. as of yet i am seeing no issues from this because i rotate plantings. bleach is a huge reset on biological diversity - i try to use it as little as possible. my own few issues of fungal nature i either ignore or got rid of the plant because i did not want to have to baby sit an ill plant or system all the time. better to find a resistant plant or some other plant that can do much the same thing but without all that work or hassle. my coppiced apple trees i didn't even hardly look at this year. they regrew several feet. i need to remove them entirely next spring...
hau Songbird, Taphrina deformans is a very bad fungus for fruit trees and it does not go away easily since it can survive everything including ground fires. Hence I mentioned removal from the area of the infected material and that is where and why I mentioned using bleach to kill the spores, bleach kills just about any organism it comes in contact with including viruses. It also will break down into chlorine gas and water, that makes it the only biodegradable thing that I can guaranty to kill spores of Taphrina species. If I use such extreme methods, I sequester those materials. as you know, I treat things differently depending on what needs are most urgent. On Buzzard's Roost we don't have fungal issues because I have spent lots of time promoting the desirable fungi and bacteria to flourish. My soil attacks the "baddies" rather than succumbing to them. Even fire blight doesn't survive here (had an attack of that one this year). That doesn't mean that what I do here will have the same effects elsewhere though. I do not use any poisons of any kind. When I am called to help someone in the horticultural field though, sometimes expediency is required and thus I will mention the methods that can be used, that doesn't mean I recommend them, just that they work. Bio char is a good example of a method that is being found to not work everywhere, but where it does work, it works wonderfully. If however your soil is nearly pure sand, it is not the wisest choice to start with, once you have introduced plenty of humus, then it will work instead of disappearing into the eather. On my farm I let nature show me which trees and plants work best, if they don't, they die and are replaced with something else or a different, more suitable tree of the same species. I work at making my farm STUN positive, I don't want to have to do more, I want to be able to do less and still have a harvest.
Hi @Flatland, did the parsley work? I have a China Peach and a Nectarine tree that I am struggling to keep curly leaf at bay. Does anyone else have an organic solution to curly leaf?
Nice! I don't really have a green thumb but I love planting. I guess I got it from my granny. She had a green thumb though!
We haven't really had any curly leave so I haven't tried the parsley. I have to admit that the only thing that has ever worked for me was spraying with copper oxy chloride. Which isn't something i really like doing but if the tree last season lost all its leaves then i think it is the lesser of two evils.