Do you ever stop fertilizing fruit trees?

[meyerske]

Do you ever stop fertilizing, or do you do it every year regardless of the age of the tree? Do you fertilize pears?

 

[trampledbyturtles]

For wildlife trees I don't fertilize at all.
Takes a little longer. But no issues.
Feel it disrupts natural nutrient cycle more than it helps.

Home orchard will use some organic foliar an liquid compost tea.

Depends on your situation I guess.

 

[Catscratch]

Haven't fertilized one yet...

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[Diesel5610]

Don't fertilize my trees, they are all wildlife trees.

 

[Mortenson]

Haven't fertilized any yet. May do a couple with a cup of triple something just to watch and see what happens vs the rest unfertilized. I know Turkey Creek isn't a big advocate of it.

 

[yoderjac]

I don't have time to fertilize all the trees I plant. Once planted and protected, they don't get much attention from me.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I'll give you a bit of info from Penn State's manual for home gardeners (which I suppose would include wildlife plantings). This is available in Penn State's comprehensive guide, "Fruit Production For The Home Gardener." $12 from Penn State. It covers many fruits we may want to grow.

Generally, apple trees need fertilizing each year. Nitrogen is the most important nutrient. Two others, phosphorus and potassium are needed in relatively higher amounts when the tree is young. After maturity, it usually only requires nitrogen.

Further fertilizer dosages are in that manual for gradually increasing the amounts as the tree grows. For guys with many habitat trees it may get too expensive.

 

[blueKYstream]

My apple and pear trees are quite young. From what I read, if you apply a slow release fertilizer then you might need to water the trees a bit more frequently in dry spells. I can't comment on if that's true or not. I did prune some of my fruit trees yesterday and threw some slow release Osmocote out. It's fast and easy to do. I doubt you need to do it for pear trees but I can't help myself.

 

[Prof.Kent]

I stopped fertilizing my apple trees around my house. They are all under 20 years old. Soil is sand. Two years later their quality did a real nose dive. Apples half the normal size. Trees looked like they were struggling, health-wise. I'll be staying with a fertilizer schedule from now on. Remember, this is sandy soil.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Haven't fertilized any yet. May do a couple with a cup of triple something just to watch and see what happens vs the rest unfertilized. I know Turkey Creek isn't a big advocate of it.

Fertilizer is generally not necessary on decent soil and non bearing trees. Once your trees start producing you might need some fertilizer as the crop is taking up nutrients and you and/or the critters are hauling the nutrients away from the tree

 

[Mortenson]

Thanks for clarifying! I shouldn't have answered for you, especially since I was wrong.

 

[H20fwler]

I fertilize my fruit trees when they are young from three years until around seven years old. I use triple 10 or 15 early spring half a cup around drip line, pears too. All of my fruit trees are for wildlife and they have all been planted in ground that had been used for rotated crops before I got ahold of it.
So my reasoning is it sure doesn't hurt to help them out at the start to give them a boost on ground that had been raped for over a century. I fertilize young confers to and my pollinator plots...eventually after a few decades the ground will be healthier and hopefully there won't be a reason to fertilize at all.

 

[Catscratch]

What about using regenerative practices where plants, fungi, and bacteria release bound minerals in the soil instead of synthetic? I know there is a little of a push for this in plots, is anyone applying it to fruit trees?

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[trampledbyturtles]

I stopped fertilizing my apple trees around my house. They are all under 20 years old. Soil is sand. Two years later their quality did a real nose dive. Apples half the normal size. Trees looked like they were struggling, health-wise. I'll be staying with a fertilizer schedule from now on. Remember, this is sandy soil.

No to be a jerk, but your pointing out every issue every conventional farmer showcases.
Feed the soil first.

 

[H20fwler]

What about using regenerative practices where plants, fungi, and bacteria release bound minerals in the soil instead of synthetic? I know there is a little of a push for this in plots, is anyone applying it to fruit trees?

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Yes, gypsum. It was one of the first things I spread in my orchards for an initial amendment to my soil.
For me it helps with my clay, helps to reduce the effects of decades of heavy equipment compaction and helps to release micro nutrients in the soil so they can be more readily used by fruit trees and plants. Very good for root system development and to help feed the trees.

 

[Barndog56]

What about using regenerative practices where plants, fungi, and bacteria release bound minerals in the soil instead of synthetic? I know there is a little of a push for this in plots, is anyone applying it to fruit trees?

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Definitely. My orchard floor consists of a majority of red clover, for nitrogen fixation. Early every summer I broadcast buckwheat. It accumulates phosphorous and makes it available the following year after decomposing. As with red clover, buckwheat has a very deep root system, helping add organic matter to the soil. So too with the winter rye I overseed with every fall so I still have something with a living root over the winter.

Planting dynamic accumulators like comfrey, borage, bee balm, and chicory, and letting weeds like dandelion and lambsquarter grow will also help mine the soil and make those nutrients available in your tree's root zone.

Taking steps to encourage biology in your soil is also important. So minimum tillage, always having something growing, diversity in your plantings, and using insecticides and fungicides as little as possible.

 

[Catscratch]

I knew you guys were out there! I do clovers and chicory around my fruit trees for the same reasons listed above. I'm not agaisnt fertilizer, just want to do it another way.

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[BuckSnort]

http://www.midwestwhitetail.com/fruit-plots-apple-orchards/
I remembered reading this article a while back so I had to look it up. He recommends several years of Triple 19 during establishment & then a switch to urea after that noting that it is aggressive but has worked to get the trees large and producing sooner.
My trees are all young & on sandy soil so I have been fertilizing so far at least to get them established, seems to be working well.

 

[Northbound]

That's a good read. I've always just 'mulched' with manure/ bedding at time of planting. Think I might have to add some triple 19 after reading that

 

[Prof.Kent]

What about using regenerative practices where plants, fungi, and bacteria release bound minerals in the soil instead of synthetic? I know there is a little of a push for this in plots, is anyone applying it to fruit trees?

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I use BioVam Mycorrhiza Fungi, just in case my sandy soil doesn't have it. It's not very expensive, you only need to apply it once, and the literature makes a good point. Trees can't absorb minerals directly, they need fungi to break them down and make trace-mineral compounds which the tree can then absorb.