Brown Rot
Stone fruit rotting on the tree: a soft brown patch that grows powdery gray-tan spore tufts, often in rings, until the peach or cherry is a fuzzy mummy. It moves fastest in warm, wet weeks right before harvest.
Disease checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of it
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Strip mummies and prune cankers
Every mummified fruit left hanging or dropped inoculates next year's crop; winter sanitation is the foundation.
Try this first2Thin fruit so nothing touches
Rot spreads fruit-to-fruit on contact; a hand's width between fruits contains it.
3Protect the blossoms and ripening fruit
The two infection windows. Orchards with a history need label-scheduled fungicide at bloom and pre-harvest.
captan fungicide fruit
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Which plants get brown rot
Every plant we cover that gets brown rot, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same disease can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
trees6
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Rosaceae, with 8 of the 8 affected plants.
- Rosaceae8 plants
When to treat
The sprays that matter are at bloom and again a few weeks before harvest. Pull off mummies whenever you see them.
On specific plants
- Dormant
- Dormant copper/oil for shot hole + brown rot.
- Growing
- Petal fall: curculio insecticide. Brown rot: fungicide as fruit colors.
- Growing
- Brown Rot: Nectarines are highly susceptible. Spray fungicide at petal fall, shuck split, and pre-harvest.
- Growing
- Petal Fall (Shuck Split): Insecticide (Curculio/OFM) + Fungicide (Brown Rot). Cover sprays every 10-14 days. Pre-Harvest: Fungicide 2 weeks before picking.
- Growing
- Petal Fall: Insecticide essential. Brown Rot sprays crucial as high-sugar fruit ripens.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for brown rot and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets brown rot, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.