Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction: The Impact of Diet on Health and Productivity
Hi, everyone. How does the food that you eat affect your health and productivity? Let's say that during the month of January, you make a resolution to eat really healthy, nutrient rich foods. You eat lots of fruits and vegetables, healthy grains and proteins.
How will you feel? How will you function? Now, maybe in February you're really busy and you don't have time to mess around in the kitchen cooking healthy dishes. So maybe you skip meals and make up for it by eating potato chips and chocolate bars on really busy days. You grab burgers and fries for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
How will that affect the way that your body feels? I think intuitively most of us know that the quality of our diet. does affect how we feel and how we function.
[00:00:55] Comparing Human Nutrition to Plant Nutrition
But when it comes to our gardens, it's so much harder to know if our fruit trees and other plants have a healthy diet. Perhaps that's because our soil doesn't come with a list of ingredients.
Some soils are rich in nutrients, many other soils are not. In this episode, we will explore what nutrients our fruit trees need and when we need to supply them with these nutrients. My guest on the show today will tell us all about that. He's Rob Crassweller, PhD, Tree Fruit Production Extension Specialist from Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.
And now let's tune in to today's topic. Rob, welcome to the show today. Thank you.
It's good to be here. It's great to have you here. And in the introduction, I compare human food with food for fruit trees and plants, but that's hard to do, isn't it? Do you think that a lot of people overlook the nutritional needs of fruit trees? That's probably a good question. They just assume everything's here in the soil.
I've got good grass growing, I've got a good orchard, and I probably don't need to do anything. So There is ways you can find that out though. And that's what we'll talk about today.
[00:02:19] Essential Nutrients for Fruit Trees
let's start with the basic nutrients that fruit trees need. So we go to our garden centers and we see that there are fertilizers and they have NPK values.
So is that all our fruit trees need? Tell me what is NPK and what part of the diet is that for a fruit tree? Okay. That's a good question.
[00:02:40] Understanding NPK and Macronutrients
NPK of course stands for nitrogen, which is the N, P which is phosphorous and potassium, which is K. And that's why you see the NPK. Those are what we call macronutrients among the macronutrients, and that's where most of our fertilizers are from.
However, your next question about there are, at least when I went to school, there were 16 essential nutrients, that are needed and one of the ways we learned how to remember them was a little memory trick where we had a saying goes and went, see Hopkins cafe, mighty good, clean mob comes in.
And, huh. Okay. So see Hopkins cafe. I love that. So see Hopkins, like Charlie Hopkins, something like that. So let's take, us through Charlie Hopkins, his cafe. It's mighty clean, whatever. Tell me a little bit about that. How do you associate that with nutrients? Okay. Basically what it is, if you write it out with the chemical symbols for those nutrients, that tells you what, they are.
And so the C is for carbon. we have Hopkins, which is in order hydrogen oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, and sulfur. And that's what you get to Hopkins. So it's H O P K N S. And then you have cafe, which is everybody knows how to spell that. C A F E, but C A stands for calcium. F E stands for iron. So those are the other two.
Then we get into the next one. Mighty good. it's magnesium, M G. And then, we have clean, which is represented by C L. Which is chlorine simple. And then we have mob. Mob means M O B and M O is molybdenum, which is tough to say now. And then boron, which of course is, the B on that and comes in as a alliteration, I guess you'd say it's a CU, which is copper MN, which is manganese, not magnesium, but manganese.
And the last one is zinc. So that's a whole lot of nutrients. So if you, if I go to my garden center and I grab my, 10, 10, 10, and we're going to talk about that a little bit later. is that going to fulfill my fruit trees needs? Can I just plop some of that on and just hope for the best and think, okay, I've done it for this year.
I've given my fruit trees 10, 10, 10. That's probably the ones you need in the most, but there are a lot of other ones that you do need to, what we call the macronutrients. NPK are the macronutrients. They're the major nutrients. Other major nutrients, of course, are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. And that's, that I find crazy.
Yeah, that I find crazy because, hydrogen and oxygen, is that a nutrient? is that a nutrient for humans? we have, that's water component of water. H2O, and we need water, right? I guess so, then it's a nutrient. I think of nutrients in terms of my vitamins and minerals, and I never think, oxygen is nutrient.
I guess I would die without my oxygen. okay. So we have a whole mess of different nutrients. They, I guess they all contribute something else to the health of your fruit tree.
[00:06:04] Identifying Nutrient Deficiencies in Fruit Trees
If you have a malnourished tree, how will you actually know that you have a malnourished tree? there's a couple of ways.
One, the easiest way, of course, is to take what we call plant analysis. And that's where you take a collection of some of the leaves. And you dry them off and you send them off to a laboratory, which most universities, have them. McGill has it, all the other, you can get it in Ontario, there's places and firms that do it.
And, what they'll do is they'll analyze these chemically and they'll give you a percentage of each nutrient or parts per million of each nutrient that's in that plant tissue. And then what we do is we go and compare them, see what they should be. So basically you're saying the tree can't tell us. We have to test.
We have to test. In some cases the tree can tell you if you know what to look for, but usually when you see those symbols or see those symptoms, you're really in trouble. And our symptoms, for example, be low in nitrogen. Why are you not getting as much shoot growth or the plants are a little bit yellowish or not really lush green and by the same token, if they're really lush green and got a lot of growth, then you've got too much nitrogen so you can't do much of elements as well as not having enough and so there are ways you can tell. So you're saying that if we wait until we see the symptoms and signs on the tree, it's not too late, but it's pretty late already. It's pretty late. Now in terms of if I was growing corn or something else, how often would I test the soil and how does that differ for fruit trees?
Okay, you just mentioned right when you talk about often do I test the soil. And for row crops or field crops or vegetables, that's what we have to do. That's the only way we can do it. We test the soil. What we forget about in fruit trees is that there's a structure there always. In other words, the nutrients are reabsorbed back into the tree and they're stored in shoots and the twigs and the branches and the roots.
And so then in early spring, they are then remobilized now. And they start to provide the nutrients that are needed for initial growth. And normally when we do fruit trees, we always do a leaf analysis. Now, you still occasionally do soil analysis. Just because, you need to find out, what's our vast reservoir?
What do we have down there? And you use two, both hand in hand. But the leaf analysis, the foliar analysis gives us the most accurate picture of what that tree is able to do. And how often would you get that done? Normally we say, they are expensive, so normally say try and do one variety on one rootstock.
Once every three years. That's usually good enough. Now, commercially, a lot of different varieties may not do it that often, but say for a homeowner, probably once every three to five years would work. Okay.
[00:09:14] Listener Questions: Nutrient Testing and Pruning
We've got an email here from a listener, Paul from Southeastern Pennsylvania. I love this question. I heard it from somewhere else as well.
Paul writes, is hardwood fireplace ash good for a fruit tree. If so, when should I apply it and how much? Much like everything, it's good in moderation. You don't want to put a lot. Firewood ash is primarily composed of potassium, and potassium is what we call a cation and that means it's positively charged.
The other cations we have that we're concerned about though is magnesium and calcium, and the problem with the trees is, they're both cations. All three are cations and really don't have a way to discern or I'm not going to discriminate and take one.
And so if you have too much of one of these types of cations, then it's going to be the ones predominantly taken up. Therefore you get an over balance or over abundance of potassium. Now in fruit trees, it's really important that you have enough calcium because calcium is really what makes the fruit quality good and it actually keeps the fruit, composition and keeps it from getting soft and rotting so quick.
And so if you have too much potassium and we put all that wood ash on, it's going to be having high levels of potassium, but then the calcium is going to be not high enough. It's going to be competing to try to get into the tree. But there's so much potassium, that's what's going to get taken up. And so you have problems with, particularly with apples, with bitter pit and corking, so the distortions of the tissue.
So I guess what you're saying is a little sprinkle at some point is okay, but don't go to town with it. Yeah. Okay. You need a balanced diet and that's why it goes back to the testing. okay. We have another interesting email here. this is from Matt. Not sure if you're going to talk about pruning too, but how do I know how much to prune an apple tree? I have a few five year old gala apple trees that rarely get blossoms. Right now in winter, they have lots of vertical shoots. I tend to trim those each year when I prune as well as some other branches, a small amount.
And I think removing most of the vertical shoots removes what would have been the blossoms a few months later. So Matt wants to know about pruning. So let's have a quick answer for Matt about pruning. Okay. There's two types of pruning cuts. A heading cut and a thinning cut. A heading cut is you cut a limb off part way.
In other words, if I have my arm out here and I cut the limb as an arm and I cut it at the elbow, that's a heading cut. If I come back and cut it off at my shoulder, all the way to the point of origin, that's a thinning cut. Doing a lot of heading cuts, just the partial cuts, cause a lot more vegetative growth, makes the tree denser, makes the heart less light, and you get less flowers.
Doing the thinning cut, cutting way back my shoulder, that's going to allow better light penetration there, and therefore you're going to get more flowers, and that's how you get a bit more fruit. Great advice. Great advice. Nice answer. Okay, so we've got another listener has written in, James. Hello, I'm a new listener to your show from Carmel, Indiana.
I just love a lot of the work that Dr. Crassweller has put out and has instructed. Excellent sources of information. Thank you for all the tips and tricks. So that's from James. I appreciate it, James. Yep, James is in your fan club. So okay, we've got another email here. Hi Susan, Bob from Pennsylvania here.
Small orchard here, 21 trees. Wondering if there's an orchard floor cover crop or cover crop mix your guest can recommend?
[00:13:18] Cover Crops and Nutrient Competition
We I what we call the fine fescues. These are very fine, thin bladed cool season grasses. In other words, they will grow when it's temperatures cool, but then when it gets hot, like the summertime, they stop growing, but they still stay alive.
And so fine fescue is one. if you go to a garden center, say I want to use, fine fescue, grass seed. That'll be what you want to use. Okay, so let's say he uses fescue. What nutrients is it going to provide? that cover crop is growing in the ground. Is it going to even help feed those fruit trees?
Actually, the cover crop is going to detract nutrients from the trees. So therefore, what we normally may recommend in commercial orchards, what they'll do is they'll combine with herbicides or something to burn down somehow organic or there are organic herbicides. You'll burn the grass down from underneath what we call the drip line, which is the edge of the tree into the trunk and then to the other edge of the tree.
So just underneath, underneath the shade of the grass. And normally in commercial orchards, they will keep that bare ground or they may, commercial orchards, they usually don't use mulch, but that may be a thing that you could do in a small orchard like this is mulch it. it's any number of products you could probably use underneath there, but that'd be what I would do.
So you don't get that competition. So again, what where is the advantage of the cover crop? You're saying that cover crop will steal nutrients from our fruit trees. Why are we going to plant them? Because what we do is we just leave the grass to grow where the drive rows are (where the commercial orchards have to drive down, to get the harvest, get the pruning, where they have to control insects or diseases, they've got a stable ground).
Right, and you don't have to weed there, and it's good for the soil, even if it is taking a little bit of nutrients from your fruit tree, so you might have to fertilize it a little differently. Okay, so we were talking about how fruit trees needs change throughout the growing season.
[00:15:30] Seasonal Nutritional Needs of Fruit Trees
So I thought we would go season by season and I want to start with winter. What is happening to our fruit trees in the winter and what nutritional needs do they have then? Okay, right now they're like all bears are trying to hibernate. They're essentially trying to, there's a lot of small microscopic things are going to flower buds are still developing.
They're actually going through a period of enzymatic changes that they are developing flowers or continue to develop slowly but surely. And, but they're basically resting right now. They're not really not absorbing anything because we normally have to have temperatures. So temperatures need to be above 50 degrees Fahrenheit
for them to absorb nutrients. So most of the soils are probably not there and so they're not getting much absorption. Plus there's no leaf to pull the nutrients up. So right now, just like us, sitting back and trying to keep warm. Are they watching Netflix? Yeah. Yeah, they're probably watching. They're probably watching their own Netflix right now in the winter.
Okay, so in the winter, then the spring comes and things change or they're going to change. In the winter, do we even consider fertilizing our fruit trees? We do in a sense that the way fruit trees come out of dormancy is that as temperatures start to warm up, then they start to have more metabolic reaction.
And what happens is, you start to use the reserves that they put down last fall and stored in the trunks and the roots and the branches and stems. And they try to get those those off so what to do initially early in the spring. That's where most of the growth is coming from is from those reserves that are buried in a tree.
And so we want to fertilize about four to six weeks before bloom. Make our fertilizer application, because it's going to take that while, that much time for those nutrients to move down into the soil and get reabsorbed by the tree once the temperature of the soil is warm enough. And so then they start to supply the growth that they need once vegetative growth starts.
So the first time you're fertilizing during the year is going to be four to six weeks before bloom time. That's your first session. The tree itself is still hibernating, but what you're hoping for is for the nutrients to break down and become accessible to the tree, right? So what kind of fertilizers or what kind of nutrients are you, would a homeowner or somebody else use at that time of year?
This time of year, they're probably most looking at things like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, maybe calcium, they may need to adjust the soil pH, maybe some magnesium, but basically what we're looking at is what we call the macronutrients, the ones that are needed to the greatest amount of supply.
So would you go to your garden center and get one of your, fertilizers with an NPK number or, would you, mulch your tree with compost? What are the options at that point? Okay, you can do all those. But basically what we're talking about is, if you're going to use inorganic fertilizer, which is a salt type thing, that's where you go.
You probably go get nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium. You could need some, as I said, may need some lime, calcium. I can put that on. If you're going to use compost or organic matter type of fertilizer, then that also needs to go on early. And that's because It now needs to be absorbed down into the soil.
It needs to be transformed and then it'll be available for the roots to take up into the tree. Okay, we've got an email here. It's the same Matt.
[00:19:30] Listener Questions: Rot and Favorite Apple Varieties
And he is in South Central Pennsylvania. One of my peach trees, a 12 year old Alberta dwarf, has a small amount of rot, approximately 12 square inches, in the trunk near ground level.
Can I apply latex paint or some Captan powder to the rotted area? I keep mulch away from the trunks of my backyard apple and peach trees, but still get a little bit of rot. Okay, so Matt is asking about rot. The question is, we don't know exactly what that rot is. And so therefore, what I suggest you do is maybe if you can get a sample or a picture of it, and take it to the local county extension office, or Email it or something.
Just email it. Email it and say, what is this? and can you identify it? So we know what exactly we need to treat. again, it could be something simple. It's not necessarily simple, but it could be winter injury. And there's nothing that's kept us from doing it. And it may also be, it could be a disease or it could be.
which, which will require the Captan, or it could be, lesser peachtree borer, which is an insect. Then you have to do something different. So we really need to see what it looks like, we can make a recommendation. And I say he's got, okay, in south central Pennsylvania, you've got Adams County, Franklin County, Chambersburg, those places have county extension offices and you can go see them.
Perfect. That's great. Okay. We've got an email here from Ken. so Ken writes, happy new year to all of you. I'm hoping that all of you will try to stay healthy. We're going to try hard to stay healthy. Yes. A simple question for Dr. Crassweller. What's your favorite apple variety to eat and why? Thank you.
Yeah, I'd love to know what your favorite apple variety is. Real simple answer. Yeah. Whichever apple I'm eating. Whichever one is in your mouth at that moment. Okay. but there are some, obviously some of them, you can look in the grocery store to find some, things like a Gala.
Very good. Fuji. if, I don't know if, they're from Pennsylvania, if you can find any Nittany, like the Nittany Lions. Oh, how do you, spell that? Just like you spelled Nittany. N I T T A N Y. So that's, a local Pennsylvania apple.
[00:21:58] New Apple Varieties
There's a new one come out. Let me see, now I just see it now in the stores, called Wild Twist.
It's a very good apple and it's got Honeycrisp and Pink Lady as parents. So it's, but there's, yeah, like I said, yeah, I like Golden Delicious too. probably Red Delicious in the store from there. But, certainly there's enough good at Jazz, there's a good one out there too.
[00:22:24] Mulching and Calcium Application
Okay, another email we have here, from Ronald, who is a master gardener. And Ronald writes, I have a home orchard in Valparaiso, Indiana. Excuse me for mispronouncing that, which I probably did. What about mulching around the trees? I keep mulch away from the trunk. The question is the foliar application of calcium on fruit trees.
When to do it? Okay, so there's two questions. One is mulch and one is foliar application of calcium. Let's start with mulch. Okay, mulch is good. again, probably what we see more problems is what in the landscapes. And people pile mulch up, often referred to it in horticulture as volcano cones.
And you only need one to three inches of mulch. As far as keeping up close to the trunk, there's not really a problem. other than possibility, if you get some mice or, voles or something like that, it protects them so they can get up close to the trunk and eat, chew on the bark. But, normally if it's, if you're only one inch or so, you shouldn't have a problem with mulch or trees.
Okay. you need an organic mulch or a organic material type of mulch. You don't want to use tar paper and stuff like that. What about the calcium spray? Is that Okay, yeah. The calcium relates to problem we had, I mentioned earlier today, about bitter pit and corking.
And that's because you have calcium deficiency. the easiest way is coming through and making calcium sprays, starting, shortly after bloom and about every 10 to 15 days, an application of, we've used calcium chloride, which I don't know if you guys use it in Canada, but that's road salt.
That's used for melting ice, but there are other calcium products you can use. And when is the ideal time for that? So we had been talking about the spring application of mulch for your first application of the year. When would a calcium foliar spray be appropriate? What time of year?
There's a lot of research and people looking at this and there's different points of view. It depends on, really how much growth you're getting and how much problem you've had. If you've not had a problem, first cover, which is usually somewhere, it's about 10 days, 10 to 20 days after full bloom has occurred. So you start then, and about every 10 to, 15 days, make an application up till about a couple weeks just before harvest. And just continuously applying. Okay, we have an email from Carla. Thank you for writing, Carla.
Carla writes, Hello from NYC. Just saying hello and thanks for the advice. Okay, good. Yeah, a lot of good orchards up there in the Hudson Valley where she is. She's in NYC. That's right. Okay, so we talked about winter.
[00:25:33] Spring Nutritional Needs for Fruit Trees
Not much is happening with the trees. They are hibernating just like we are in the winter.
Talk about what is happening with our fruit trees in the spring. How is their activity different? And how do the nutritional needs change? Okay, as I indicated, You know what with the initial growth up until about bloom, all that is based on reserves that are in the tree that are being solubilized and moved back into that initial growth.
So the initial growth that you first see when the tissue starts, the flowers start, That is all based on reserves. Once you get into bloom and thereafter, now you're getting all the nutrients that you applied in your late winter, early spring fertilizer. Now those are moving up into the tree. The tree, the soil temperature's up high enough and so the roots are taking the nutrients up and they're distributing into the tree.
And depending on what nutrient is and where the biggest amount of growth is, that's where these nutrients will be delivered to. So the nutrients are coming up into the tree, but the tree is burning them at the same time, right? Like they are producing flowers, they are producing leaves. Shoots, correct. The shoots are growing, right?
It's like a marathon. Yeah, they're all coming out. it's interesting in, if you look at the difference between stone fruit. and pome fruit. pome fruit would be apples and pears and quince. but stone fruit would be cherries, peaches, and so on and so forth. And, particularly with the stone fruit, the first thing that opens up, tissue that opens up, are the flowers.
In pome fruit, apples and pears, what happens is actually the shoot starts And then the flowers come up. And so there's that little bit of lag where the flowers are set. So really in, in the spring for fruit to set on stone fruit trees, they really need to make sure they had enough reserve from the previous year to support the initial fruit set.
of those stone fruit, of the peaches and cherries and so on and so forth. Whereas apples, they got, both the competition for the shoot growth going on and then afterwards they have to set flowers. So you have to have that double dose right there of nutrients. So they have a lot of needs at this point.
So Rob, so in springtime and summertime, what are the different nutritional needs that your fruit tree may have? Are there certain nutrients in particular that they'll need? of course, the real critical point reason we're growing fruit trees is we want to have fruit to set right and therefore, the flower setting that's quite a metabolic process and so there are definite nutrients that are needed during that time.
Nitrogen is one you'll have to be able to grow. Initially fruit set and growth is primarily by cell division so all the cells are dividing. Later in the growing season it's by cell expansion and so if you have a lot of cells set and divide early right after bloom, then you have more cells that can expand later on, and so your fruit size is larger.
Now we'll get into a whole bunch of reasons how to get there, but one of the things is nutrition. You need to have good nitrogen levels. The other thing that is important, really critical, during, pollination is boron levels, and so we need to have good levels of boron, and a lot of commercial growers will actually make applications of boron fertilizer, foliar application, either in the fall or previous.
or just shortly after, flowering. I'm going to try to get that, those flowers to set, actually do before flowering, so that the pollen tube will go down and set and cause seed formation and will set the fruit. So that's the early part. It's nitrogen and then, boron as well.
[00:29:36] Nutrient Management for Backyard Growers
So okay, so practically speaking, if I'm a backyard grower, I have done my first application in the early, the late winter to prepare for the spring.
How on earth do I add more nitrogen and boron to my trees starting from the spring? What do I add? Do I go to the garden center and say, hey, I'd like some nitrogen and boron for my trees, please? Some people, occasionally some growers will throw on a foliar spray of nitrogen, but most time you've got enough if you did right in the spring. Okay, now the boron, a tablespoon or two per gallon of 20 Mule Team Borax. Remember the old, washing powder and the old mule train, the product that will give you your boron, put that and spray that on your trees.
So you're mixing it with water, Borax soap. And I think it's available now at health food shops. I don't know, is it? Where would you get Borax? Borax soap, there should be, that used to be, again, south of the Canadian border. That was a product that you could go in grocery stores. It used to be an old laundry soap product.
I'm sure some of the gardens have it. Ronald Reagan advertised for it. That's how old it is. And how much would I mix in with water, and exactly when do I spray it? obviously. You could do it during full bloom, one to two tablespoons of, 20 Mule Team Borax in a gallon of water. And spray it on during bloom. And, would that affect the bees and stuff if bees are buzzing around? Would we want to avoid any pollinators while we're spraying?
Yeah, there's, it's probably good to always avoid spraying when there's pollinators. But Borax shouldn't, it's just soap. It's just soap. And people can do it early in the morning while it's still cool, perhaps? Or where there's the Or at night where the pollinators are not available.
Wow. That's a great little tip. Oh my goodness Okay. So that is spring. we've got a couple of emails here.
[00:31:45] Choosing the Right Apple Tree Varieties
So let's read them this is from Rachel. Hi, I will be a very first time apple tree planter slash grower Are there any apple tree varieties that I should start with? Any I should stay away from.
I live in Welland, Ontario. I think that my zone is 6B, but I'm not positive. Will my zone affect my purchase? I'm going to hand this over to you, but before I do, I want to say to Rachel, if you go to orchardpeople. com , I have an online workshop called Certificate in Fruit Tree Care, which will teach you all the different things you need to know before planting your fruit trees, including how to pick the perfect tree for your zone, for pollination purposes.
It's a wonderful and very thorough course. You'll know everything you need to know to take care of your trees there. So orchardpeople. com. But now back to Rob. The answer is, there an easy type, apple tree variety to start with that you would recommend? But I would recommend if you're, again, a backyard grower, I would recommend you go with some of these scab or disease resistant varieties.
those require less control. Apple scab is the primary disease. And in Ontario, I know it's a primary disease as well, as it is in Pennsylvania. that's really what you want, some of these, some of the varieties like, Golden Delicious or Red Delicious. Those get apple scab and cause defoliation and impacts the quality of the fruit that puts a little basically scab lesions on the fruit.
And so these ones that are scab resistant, they've been developed Ontario, Canada, they've been developed U. S. overseas. there's a lot of them available. Freedom is one that's an older variety. Nova Spy's another one. That probably wouldn't be a problem at all up in Canada as far as cold hardiness.
Novamac. And may I proudly say that Nova Spy and Novamac, as far as I know, are from Canada. They are. Nova Scotia. So we are proud to say those are our trees. Crimson Gold. CrimsonCrisp is a new one that is a very good, it's a mid September here in middle Pennsylvania, and I believe they're growing them up in the orchards in Canada, in Ontario province as well.
CrimsonCrisp, there's a Crimson Gold, there's a whole slew of different ones out there. Liberty is another one that came from New York and it's a really good cold hardy variety as well So there are a number and i'm sure you've got them listed on your in your book as well Yes, definitely. definitely in my course I will take you through everything you need to know to make sure the climate zone is correct.
It's like a puzzle to get just the right tree that will thrive in your unique conditions. So certificate in fruit tree care, orchardpeople. com, hopefully that will help. Okay.
[00:34:45] Fertilizing and pH Levels
We've got, an email here from Ronald from Woodstock, Maryland. He says, I don't want to overfertilize my trees. What should the NPK values be for fruit trees?
And I appreciate that question because I get quite often that no matter what The fruit tree is experiencing people just dump on a 10 10 10, an NPK of 10 10 10. Should people just do that? Or again, are we going back to the issue of tissue testing the leaves? Yeah, there's, a number of things as far as tissue test, of course, that's thing, but there's a couple of rule of thumbs you might be able to use, and it really depends on the age of the tree.
Normally what we would say is you apply for apples now, apply 0. 02 actual pounds of nitrogen for your age tree. And so what you would do is if you have a pound of 10, 10, 10, if you put a pound of that on your tree 0. 10 pounds nitrogen. So that's way too much. So what you have to do is you have to put two tenths of a pound to get 0. 02 pounds or 0. 02 pound for your age tree from new tree. So an older tree needs more. And we're talking about nitrogen specifically an older tree needs more. Yeah, as the tree grows older, and then, as the tree gets older, you start looking, what's my soil doing? How, my climate doing?
And we're looking for somewhere in apples 12 to 18 inches of shoot growth on an annual basis. On stone fruit peaches, we're looking, say, 18 to 24 inches because it depends on where the flowers are. So pears are somewhat less than apples. cherries are in between peaches and say apples.
so we're somewhere in the neighborhoods. We start as low at 12 and maybe up to 24 inches of shoot growth, depending on what type of fruit crop you're growing. And that's a way you can look at it that way. Exactly. Yeah. And yeah, so that's interesting because what would a fruit tree look like if it was over fertilized?
How would it react? It would look really lush and less than green and long shoot growth, real dense foliage, and that's what you don't want to see. You want to see them struggle a little bit and, yeah, I would like to have more, but because otherwise what's happened all that nitrogen is just going to all the shoot growth.
Now you don't get any fruit. That's right. That's right. You get lots of green. It feels like tropically beautiful and there's no fruit. And if you over fertilize, it's not good. So thank you for the question. And, he adds also what pH range is best. Okay. The normal range we like to say is somewhere between 6 to 6. 5. If you got in certain areas, on the West coast, maybe a little bit higher. And more, six to seven, generally speaking in our soils, we normally looking six to six and a half. And that's pretty much most throughout the lower 48 is what we're looking for. So somewhere around there. Okay.
So another email we have here. now let's see, who is this from Sherry? Hi, I live in Syracuse, New York. I wanted to start growing some fruit trees on my two acres of land here. What is an easier tree to grow? we've heard that question already. Oh, apple or pear. Are they the same? Sherry's asking, are apples easier than pears?
Are pears easier than apples? What would you do with the two acres of land that she has? Pears take a little longer to come into production. They start to get mature enough to produce fruit. pears are also very susceptible, which certain apple varieties are too, to a disease called fire blight. which is the bacterial disease, and usually the worst time it can affect it is during blossom, so pears are a little bit more, problematic that way, there are again some new pear varieties that seem to be doing a little bit better, now, but the traditional ones that everybody knows, Bartlett, Bosc, Andrew, Those are problematic.
So look at some of the new ones or some of the new fire blight resistant pairs. Look into that as a possibility, but they will take longer to come into production.
[00:39:24] Fall Care for Fruit Trees
Tell me about the fall. Should we be feeding our fruit trees in the fall? Okay. We've gone through the season. we're, harvesting the fruit and all of a sudden we look up, there's a little bit of what we call cork and a bitter pit on our fruit or it doesn't look right, a lot of time what commercial growers will do will be they will apply some of the micronutrients.
Those micronutrients are such that they only require very small amounts. And those include things like boron, it includes manganese, it includes zinc, it includes iron. a lot of times what commercial growers will do, will be in the fall after the fruit is off, but before the leaves drop, and while it's still green, they'll come in with a micronutrient spray.
And again, maybe boron and we talked about the 20 Mule Team Borax that's still available in the grocery store, one to two tablespoons of that. Same thing, you can get an iron, iron chelate material at your garden center. Apply that, zinc sulfate.
I want to thank you so much, Rob, for coming on the show today. I have learned a lot, and I think that the listeners really appreciated being able to ask their questions.
I always enjoy questions. Questions are the best. So thank you so much.
[00:40:48] Listener Reviews and Show Wrap-Up
before we wrap up the show, I want to say thank you so much to those of you who have rated and reviewed this show on your local podcatcher. Your reviews mean the world to me. I so appreciate it. Recently I had two really lovely new reviews.
One was from the hopeful urban farmer in California who writes. I discovered this podcast and the website searching for gardening podcasts. I have a few fruit trees in my yard in California. I've listened to many of these podcasts and I love them. I often listen to them on my daily walks. I also found some great material on Susan's website and hope to take one or more of her courses in the near future.
I'm a subscriber to the podcast and look forward to new and useful material in the future. Keep up the great work. So thank you. So much for the hope to the hopeful urban farmer in California, and here's another review from Ak Sabra, who writes, I'm always learning something new from these podcasts. Thank you for the great information.
It helps me to take better care of my trees. and inspires me to help others as well. So I so appreciate that. And thanks to you, the listeners for tuning into this show today. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to listen to the podcast version or watch the video after I edit it, just go to orchardpeople.
com slash. Podcast. orchardpeople. com slash podcast and you'll get lots more information, we'll put links up. I'm Susan Poizner from the Fruit Tree Care Training website, orchardpeople. com. Thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you next month.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great topics, you can visit orchardpeople. com slash podcast. The show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month, and each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
If you're interested in learning more about growing your own fruit trees, or just about living a more sustainable life, Go to OrchardPeople. com and sign up for my information packed monthly newsletter. If you like this show, please do like our Orchard People Facebook page.
Thank you so much for tuning in. It's been wonderful to have you as a listener, and I hope to see you again next time.
Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.