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The bark of young peach (Prunus persica<\/em>) or nectarine (P. persica<\/em> nucipersica) trees are sensitive to winter injury caused by rapid drops in daily temperatures. On a winter’s day, the sun may heat up the sapwood under\u00a0the thin skinned peach bark. Research in Georgia shows that temperatures on the south side of a peach tree\u00a0may reach 96 \u00b0F while the outside air temperature is only 55\u00b0F.<\/p>\n Sapwood thaws and refreezes,\u00a0possibly injuring\u00a0tissues\u00a0beneath the thin bark. The south side of the trunk warms more than north side; freeze\u00a0injury and bark splitting are generally worse on the south side. White latex paints offers some winter protection by reflecting heat and light away. Daily winter temperature gradients\u00a0are less on the painted\u00a0trunks compared to\u00a0untreated.<\/p>\n Painting is most effective on 1-2 year old peach and nectarine trees. Apply one coat of a water-based interior white latex paint to trunk and main branches from 2 \u00bd feet high down to the ground.\u00a0Dilute the paint\u00a0at least 50% with water to\u00a0allow the trunk wood to breathe. Never apply an oil-based paint to a tree trunk and branches.<\/strong><\/p>\n One more chore:<\/strong> protect\u00a0trunk of young 1-2 year old fruit trees against gnawing rabbits and\u00a0field mice (voles). Loosely wrap chicken wire or wire mesh cloth\u00a0for protection, and permit the trunk room to expand and breath. Do not wrap with plastic film or piping as this creates a winter haven for insects and other critters. Remove all protection guards once trees have started their third spring.<\/p>\n Photo credit<\/strong>: Dr. David Lockwood, Tree Fruit Specialist, University of Tennessee, Knoxville..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The bark of young peach (Prunus persica) or nectarine (P. persica nucipersica) trees are sensitive to winter injury caused by rapid drops in daily temperatures. On a winter’s day, the sun may heat up the sapwood under\u00a0the thin skinned peach bark. Research in Georgia shows that temperatures on the south side of a peach tree\u00a0may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[599,833,933,630,861,850,455,162,642],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7658,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions\/7658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}