between the tree orchard maintenance

[bigboreblr]

What do you guys do between your trees? Any special grass you grow. You do any tillage in new orchard areas?

Got about 25 new tree at home. I did spread some clover, but not making it over pentiful because it attracts voles. Considering buying a spiked roller or even rototilling and amending the clay soil I have.

IT's lawn, but its at the back of my property line, so it doesn;t have to be that pretty. Planted B118 and M111 trees 25 x 25 ft apart.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We just have grass in the orchard. We found out the hard way what cultivating between trees does - it killed almost all our trees some years ago. A Penn State professor told me (after our mishap!!) apple tree feeder roots go out up to 20 feet. By cultivating between our rows back then, we unknowingly chopped up all those tiny feeder roots and killed our trees - thinking we'd plant some kind of crop between the rows. We never tried THAT again, and we ended up replanting dozens of apple & crab trees all over again. Lost time, tree growth, and money.

Mowing grass between the trees is easy and painless. Mowing grass short keeps mice and voles less likely to expose themselves to hawks, owls, foxes, etc. That keeps the bark chewing attempts to a minimum.

 

[Telemark]

What about high sugar ryegrass?

 

[Tree Spud]

I've thought about planting clover as it would be adding nitrogen, but then that would attract deer on on daily basis. As the trees are still young, 3-5 years old, they are susceptible to browsing by the deer.

 

[g squared 23]

I have clover as my trees are producing and they’re over their cages; I’ve swapped out the 5’x12.5’ cages for 4’ around the trunk so they dont get rubbed. Voles haven’t been an issue so far, i do use aluminum screen around the base of the trunk.


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[Peeps]

I have clover planted around my trees. A good plot/orchard. Cage the trees and deer won’t be an issue. Bears are my main issue. They will break off 10’ caged trees with no fruit on them just to be assholes.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I have clover planted around my trees. A good plot/orchard. Cage the trees and deer won’t be an issue. Bears are my main issue. They will break off 10’ caged trees with no fruit on them just to be assholes.

TRUE!! Bears destroy things just being curious and/or playful. I'd be happy if we had no bears near our camp. As for clover around fruit trees - it's a good thing to have, but personally - I'd frost seed it and avoid any in-orchard / near-tree tillage. We killed many apple trees with tillage that was too close to our trees.

 

[homerj]

For anybody who is going to spray insecticide on their trees, I'd avoid planting clover or anything else that blooms anywhere near the same time as their orchard trees.

 

[H20fwler]

One of our wildlife orchards is planted to clover mix - chicory and other is native grasses...neither get mowed they are pretty wild but growing fine. Our home orchard is yard grass that gets mowed once a month in summer.

 

[willy]

I have 7 fruit orchards planted for human or wildlife use. I have a clover, alfalfa, chicory mix planted in and around them. I have sprayed gly, and cleth around on them to keep non desirable weeds down. It don't cure everything but it is a nice draw. I over seeded with rye on a few of them and don't mow them until August. This results in a fine fawn rearing/hiding area that produces good food almost year round. I am careful around my fruit trees from getting spray on them but I have added 4x8 sheets of plastic around the trees that protects from overspray and coons from climbing the trees.

I have a 2.5 acre soybean plot that surrounds 3 incredible producing pear trees. I am careful spraying around the three trees and only use duct work around the trunks to keep coons off. I realize I am rolling the dice but I am very careful with my herbicide timing and what I spray. I would say I have a 4' radius around each of those trees that don't see any herbicide. I manually control the weeds around them. The one pear is an asian and the other two are keiffers. The asian started dropping fruit 3 weeks ago and still has some on it. I've picked 35 gallons off of it so far. The kieffers are loaded and will drop fruit into December.

I don't till in my orchard and fruit tree areas. I plant no till beans and broadcast the other seeds in to the rye when shred it.

I have 7 persimmon trees that I planted in 13 and they have started to produce a large amount of fruit Two of them that are loaded drop in November, December,, and later, I'm looking forward to what comes after them.

 

[cavey]

Mowed weeds -

Mainly grasses for the most part. Around some of the more established larger trees that can handle browse I have planted clover before ,... currently everything has receded to grass with some clover mixed in.

 

[PoorSand]

Alfalfa here. I have sand soil though. The tree roots air prune near the surface of this soil.