If you want great tasting apples, avoid clover. Nitrogen water logs the apples, diluting the natural flavor. Use nitrogen on young trees to accelerate growth of the trees frame. Once the tree is in production, starve the tree of nitrogen; at this point you want quality fruit production, not vegetative growth.Very nice! Consider what you'll plant in between your trees. I've pondered getting a solid stand of clover going (with a rye nurse crop) into something like that to feed nitrogen to your trees once their in.
I haven't heard this before. Given clover's shallow roots and an apple's much deeper roots...I'd need to see some research showing this to be true (doubting Thomas...sorry)
Nitrogen is stored in nodules on the roots of clover and other legumes. Generally, most of the nitrogen is used by the legumes themselves. Some is available for other things growing in the same root zone as the clover (grass for example, almost all lawn mixes used to have a percentage of white dutch clover). Most of the N in legume roots is stored until the plant is terminated...the N is then more available for other plants (which is why we terminate red clover in foodplots before planting brassicas or corn for example). Synthetic N is far more mobile in soil than is the N "made" by legumes.
I'm not saying growing clover under apples is the "right" thing to do...just that I've never seen any research showing it leads to too much N for ideal fruit flavoring.
Nice. I think planting any type of a cover crop is a good idea. A smother crop of buckwheat might be a good way to build up soil as well as smother weed seeds that are in the soil. Buckwheat would kill off at the first frost though, but it grows really fast in warm weather.View attachment 5798 Just finished opening 2 new areas for orchards. Can't wait to plant and cage in the spring. In the mean time I'm thinking about broadcasting winter rye into them in August to get something worth while growing and some green manure in the spring.
Better how? Nutritionally? Most of the stuff I've seen on apples/pears and deer nutrition is that they are generally considered "desserts". Better tasting...maybe? I've seen deer ignore sweet, juicy, fragrant McIntosh apples and go for tart, dry, nasty little crabapples. What I think tastes good isn't necessarily what a deer thinks tastes good.
I look at my fruit trees as a source of high sugar food for deer and other critters...but mainly as a place to intercept deer coming from/to. I don't spend a lot of time trying to improve my local herd's nutrition as I only have 87 acres and I'm aware of the fact that deer don't spend their entire lives on my little chunk of the world.
I'm not an orchardist...I'm a hobby and wildlife fruit grower. I also don't spray my trees...or spray as little as is humanly possible. I'm not into maximizing production, nutrients, or aesthetic qualities of fruit. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things...just that it isn't my cup of tea.
Search web for university studies of apple production, organic apple studies, production of quality cider apples, etc., and many mention the effect of nitrogen on quality of apples; such as reduced flavor quality, firmness and poorer storage times. This is not new science; cider orchards in England for centuries have grown grass under their trees for two reasons: the grass soaks up nitrogen from the soil, providing more dense flavor resulting in a higher quality cider, and provides a cushion for the apples when they fall to the ground. They even let sheep graze the grass to remove excess nitrogen. Current orchards pour nitrogen to the trees to maximize poundage of the apples; you will notice store bought apples are crisp and juicy, but bland.
Read the section on nitrogen at:
http://www.cider.org.uk/frameset.htm
I had a soil test done on an area 50 yards from this orchard and surprisingly the pH came back at 6.3.Peeps-You should check the pH right away and apply lime, if needed before planting the rye.