I’ve been growing fruit trees for about 15 years. In a previous home I had clay loam and had a lot of success with all types of trees. 5 years ago, I moved to Bend, OR. I now question the widespread advice to not amend soil in planting holes, and I regret not adding some amendments. I was somewhat aware 5 years ago that the soils here are volcanic with little nutrients. I followed the widely accepted advice to not amend the soil, and now have trees that are 3 to 4 years old with anemic growth and some haven’t even bloomed yet. Standard soil tests show depleted N, P and K with slightly acidic soil. I’ve been top dressing with compost the last couple years, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. I share this so others can think more critically than I did about commonly accepted advice. I’m also curious if anyone else is in a similar situation with extremely lean soil and what has worked well?
I don’t know what magic you could have amended with that can’t be top dressed. Try applying more fertilizer but mostly more often. My soil is a permeable clay loam but nitrogen still leaches out in nothing flat. Getting growth isn’t hard with a small amount of nitrogen once a month. But honestly most of my trees are very seldom fertilized and I still get too much growth. I spent an hour today summer pruning in the greenhouse. That’s a once-a-month job with zero fertilizer.
@Nothing2crazy
Bend OR is a beautiful location. 
Your volcanics are igneous which will not be broken down into mineral constituents by soil or biologic processes in any meaningful time period. Take comfort in the fact that if you had supplemented your planting holes, the fruit trees would exhaust the resources within 7-10 years. So either way, you’d be in the same situation of needing to feed your fruit trees on an annual basis. Compost isn’t going to do it. I recommend you choose a product whose U.S. “N-P-K” rating (the 3 prominent numbers on the label) are relatively “high-low-medium”. For example, a water soluble powder that is roughly 15-5-10 or 21-7-15, etc. Try to choose something that also contains a wide array of secondary nutrients in the “Guaranteed Analysis”. If you don’t care for water-soluble, try an organic granular or meal that is 6-2-4 or similar. In either case, pay attention to dosage. For your fruit trees, stay away from products with relatively high middle numbers – feed them to your roses instead. They have a tendency to chemically bind nutrients for years at a time.
This is a really helpful reply! It all makes sense. I feel silly for having been aware of the nutrient deficient soils here, but the magnitude of it took several years to sink in
I have been going to Bend for about 50 years. I think it would be helpful to realize that you have a more limited window at altitude in a desert. A lot of people move to Bend for the skiing and snowboarding, etc. There are many lakes and mountains nearby that are beautiful. When I speak to people I know in Bend about gardening, they usually answer, “What?” I think you can garden successfully in Bend, but you have some factors that must be overcome. I would probably try to grow pie cherries, peaches and apricots if I lived there.
John S
PDX OR
The dirty little secret is that everything, or almost everything can be addressed by judicious top-dressing.
Pay up for a soil test. Assuming that you treat the trees the same, one representative tree ought to do it. Skip the ‘N’ part of the test and it’s $30 at UMass. Why guess when you can know? The test more than pays for itself by the ferts you don’t buy.
I’ve started giving my trees and other plants a pretty good shot of Urea ( the fertilizer, 46-0-0, not urine,) a couple-three weeks after leaf-fall. Assuming I don’t go nuts, I don’t have to worry about doing damage. It’s relatively cheap and the stuff breaks down over the winter and the trees hit the ground running the first few warm days of spring while I am distracted by other things.
In my experience, keeping up with N needs throughout the season is way easier than trying to catch up with N needs through the season.
I now have a little formula of this and that micro nutrient (and lime for ph control) that I use based on the soil test. ( I don’t happen to have a deficiency in ‘P’ or ‘K’ and my top-dressing described below takes care of it—-for my area.) Apply as per ag school recommendations. You can do subsequent ph tests yourself. (Avoid the cheap meters.)
I’m not organic, so I use Urea fertilizer to decompose the pile of wood chips that I have moldering in the backyard. After the pile has decomposed for a few weeks with just the urea fertilizer and has gained absorbency, I spike it with micronutrients. This is based on a separate test I had performed on the decomposed wood chip pile a few years ago.
My dosing of the decomposing wood chip pile with micro nutrients is based on my guesstimate of what the square footage of the pile would be were it spread out maybe an inch deep on the ground. 1/2 dose on the pile, then after watering it in and waiting a few weeks, I turn over the pile and half on the other side.
I try to avoid the temptation to turn the pile into a vitamin pills for plants. I’m aiming for “rich loam” but no more.
Top dress your trees with the decomposing wood chips as needed, but keep in mind that the stuff is likely to be pretty acid and to carry a pretty good dose of ‘N’
It’s not necessary to repeat the soil tests, and especially the composting wood chip test every season, especially if you learn to do your own Ph tests.
As the others have said, start with reliable producers for your area. I didn’t. Nothing succeeds like success.
Gardeners who have trouble here mostly aren’t tending their gardens. We’ve been solidly zone 7 for the 5 years I’ve been here, with no temps below 4 or 5F, and even when we’ve had those, it’s only been a night or two. Apples and pears grow well here if cared for, Bend even has an older neighborhood named the orchard district, so there is a history of growing fruit here. The biggest challenge is the late frost in May, aside from the late frost, at least for the last 5 years, we’ve had long, warm, dry summers that stretch from May well into September.
@kokopelli5A
He already did a soil test.
You can get by with nitrogen supplement because your soil composition is very different.
Hey least you didn’t kill anything! Took me killing half a dozen shade trees to realize I had to fertilize aggressively to not slowly starve trees to death
Ha, very glass half full! I have not yet killed anything! 
I don’t amend the planting hole, but I do top dress with composted cattle manure annually. My soil is on the clay side of clay loam, with a pH around 8 or above. I live in an area with a short growing season and -40 winters.
If you find a method that works for your specific planting location, stick with it. It’s always good to be open to the opinion of others, but that goes both ways. I often see 2 sides on planting depths, and trimming efforts, and then realize that most opinions come from much warmer zones with longer growing periods - and that I should come to my own conclusions for my location.
I take a big bucket ( I have horses so it is a big unused muck bucket) out with me when I plant a new tree. I put the soil I take out and put it in the big bucket. I take some bone meal and mix it with the soil and then put it back into the hole with the new tree.
I have a somewhat similar problem with my little home orchard of dwarf cider apples. The trees were failing to thrive. I finally got the soil tested and have been top dressing with lime to make the soil pH less acidic and also topdressing with blood meal (an organic nitrogen source) and rock phosphate, all as per the recommendations that came with the soil test results. A soil test in early spring is now part of my routine. The effect on the trees’ health and vigor has been dramatic.