Shot Hole (Stone Fruit)
Risk near you, next 48h
See whether your local forecast favours this disease right now.
When it strikes
Treat, then re-check in 5–7 days
Pick off the worst material, apply the organic option below, and look again after five to seven days. If the spread continued, escalate rather than repeating the same treatment.
Rain and irrigation splash
Water splashing off soil and infected leaves carries it upward and along the row. Watering at the base and mulching the soil surface break the route.
It carries over to next season in soil, debris or seed — which is why rotation matters here, not just treatment.
Hot compost only
A heap that reaches and holds 55–65°C throughout will destroy it. A cool corner heap will not, and will return the problem to the beds with the finished compost.
When and where to look
Scout the planting while temperatures hold between 8°C and 24°C, with humidity above 85%, after rain or heavy dew, while the leaves are still wet. Risk builds after roughly 8 unbroken hours of those conditions, so the morning after such a night is the moment to look.
Rule these out first
Same category, and at least one host crop in common — so they are genuinely confusable in the same part of the garden.
The signs that lead here
Full problem lists for these crops
About
Shot hole (Wilsonomyces carpophilus, also Stigmina) attacks cherries, plums, peaches and apricots during long wet spells. Its name comes from the way infected leaf tissue dies, dries and falls out, leaving foliage that looks like it has been peppered with birdshot.
Symptoms
Small purple-brown spots with a light centre appear on leaves; the dead centres drop out to leave clean round holes. Twigs develop sunken cankers that ooze gum, and fruit carries rough, scabby, raised spots.
Organic Treatment
Prune out cankered shoots in dry summer weather and destroy all fallen leaves and mummified fruit. A copper spray at leaf fall and again at bud swell is the standard organic programme, and the timing matters more than the product.
Chemical Treatment
Copper oxychloride or a captan-based product applied at leaf fall, at bud swell and again at petal fall. In persistently wet springs, add a follow-up two weeks after petal fall.
Prevention
Prune for an open canopy so the leaves dry quickly, avoid overhead irrigation, and never prune stone fruit in winter — cold wet wounds are the main way the fungus gets into wood.
Crops at risk
Related problems
Shot Hole (Stone Fruit) risk by location
Each location has a month-by-month profile computed from the weather archive: how many hours a year actually meet this disease’s thresholds.