You are right specially if you are after cider. Apples produced under abundant nitrogen are big, flavorless, with bad keeping qualities. The extra nitrogen promotes water retention (more water, lower BRIX). Decomposing bacteria needs not just the sugars but nitrogen for their own cellular growth. This last bit affects both keeping qualities and fermentation.
There is a good fix for a strong vegetative response; root pruning. With a hose that has a strong stream to peel off the top layer of dirt, find yourself a few thick secondary roots around the tree, and chop them. It will both limit nutrient uptake and distract the tree into spending energy bellow instead of above. After a few years of that nitrogen will begin to deplete by both use and leaching off into the surrounding soil.
Growing trees outside is like growing full size bonsai trees. Meaning that people think bonsai trees are being forced to do something they are not, when in reality they are given an environment where what you see is a natural expression of what the tree can be. If the tree was being stressed a few years of that would be enough to kill the tree but instead you have bonsai trees that far exceed the lifespan of their counterparts in the woods. What this means is that you get to guide how the tree expresses itself; in the case of apple trees it often means strong robust growth early on followed by a steep slow down during the production years. You canāt just slam on the brakes (cut off nitrogen overnight) so you need to figure out where you want your compromise to be; slow down growth early or later.
I have seen a study that seemed to indicate that high apps of N. did not affect the brix content of apples in itself. It may be more a matter of retention of available water in mulching that encourages big watery cells in the fruit from trees grown in soil with a very high organic matter content created by years of heavy mulching. Heavy vegetative growth also blocks light from leaves closer to the fruit and light that helps fruit color. A few years ago I read an article in Good Fruit by a researcher who discovered that apple tree leaves permanently lose their ability to photosynthesize after a certain amount of excessive shading. Maybe this is common to all tree species, but Iāve not read any follow up and the article didnāt mention a specific amount of time, only that a benefit of summer pruning was keeping leaves close to fruit functional. Since reading the article I perform spring pruning on trees tending towards biennial production in my own orchard, mopping out vigorous shoots off of big wood when Iām thinning fruit a week or two after petal fall. Anecdotally it seems to be very helpful.
In early spring, abundant N and water (in well drained soils) increases the quality of fruit because positive conditions accelerate cell division in the fruit. Later in the season it only affects the size of the cells and thatās what leads to lower brix. Unfortunately, it also leads to more bushels per acre so many commercial western fruit growers vastly reduce the quality of their product by irrigating right up to near harvest. I doubt heavy mulching does much harm in itself where it doesnāt rain during the summer months. I would tend to highly recommend it there to reduce the overall need for irrigation, although Iām not qualified to give that kind of advice to western growers. It has been almost half a century since I grew fruit there.
In the short run, over watering helps their bottom line, but it may be why Americans tend to eat less fruit than people of other wealthy countries. A lot of ours is no fun to eat because of low brix.
Meanwhile, I pray for relatively dry summers here in NY. Hasnāt happened for a while, but thatās when we get our best fruit, regardless of N levels.
Your questionā¦
ā¦
I am currently making some raised garden beds (and trying to do it as cheap as possible). As such I already happened to have several bags of Sta-green flower/vegetable soil but it specifically says for in ground use. Are there amendments I can buy that would essentially turn it into soil for raised beds?
ā¦
I think one of the best ways to do this is with time and composting in placeā¦
If you have some decent top soil on your property, perhaps around the area where your raised bed will be, dig it up and put it inā¦ Lowering the outside edges of your raised bed a bit, will help with drainage a bit more too.
To that best dirt you have add compostable materials, maple, poplar leaves (leaves that break down easily, have high calcium content), hay or wheat straw, grass clippings, manureā¦
Start this bed late spring or mid summerā¦ and plan to plant in it the next spring.
Give it the summer and fall months (warm months) to really compost nicelyā¦ and stir it up occasionally mixing all that up wellā¦
One Store Bought amendment that I often use myself is Black Kow (composted cow manure)ā¦ it has a NPK of .05 .05 .05. and I have been using it for many years, to supplement my own home made compost and have had really good luck with it.
The best garden beds are made with a long term approachā¦ Start building them one spring or summer, with the plan to use them the next spring.
Over the winter months, you might top it off with a nice deep layer of hay or wheat straw, or maple leaves.
You will be amazed as how nicely that bed will turn out if you do that and how full of worms it will be that next spring.
every early fall i give several cups of blood meal, fish bone meal, azomite ,dolomote lime, green sand, 6 cups of worm castings and sprinkling of sulfur per 4ā x 8ā bed. if the soil settles some i top off with whatever garden soil i have available. i mix it well. next spring, as soon as it thaws out , i mix it well again then plant. all the amendments have time to break down over winter.
Pretty much the same end result. Brix is a measurement of the concentration of sugars. Take a glass of cider, add water to it. The end result will have the exact same amount of sugar but it will be diluted. Nitrogen leads to apples retaining a lot more water and thus diluting them. When it comes to hard cider making you just canāt work with it; you need a certain amount of sugar for fermentation which if diluted may not be enough. Excessive nitrogen also accelerates fermentation affecting the end result.
Up here we have a short but sun intense season (around 19 hours of direct sunlight during the solstice). Anything that has not mature fruit by early September risks catching the first frosts of the year. For us rain means it cuts back on the number of sun hours our plants get. Enough rain and we end up with entire crops not maturing on time.
More root growth means more access to water- but the water has to be available. I donāt remember what the conditions were for the experiment or even where it was done, but such research is, at best, suggestive, and never definitive. In matters horticultural, research is often inadequate to draw firm conclusions. That doesnāt stop researchers from trying, much as we tend to exaggerate the firmness of our anecdotal conclusions.
However, cider makers, like wine makers, acquire more anecdotal evidence about brix than fruit growers like me- they have to be highly attuned to it to make a good product. I know very little about producing wine grapes, but I do know that a deep rich soil is not the key to good wine.
Hereās hoping you get adequate sun and warmth to create a great cider this year. Cheers.
I donāt think that the $28.9 billion wine industry nor the $4.54 billion hard cider industry is built on too much anecdotal evidence. Heck there is a clear distinction between the sort of anecdotal evidence that eventually is proven wrong and the results whose causes are poorly understood but that are consistent time after time. Electricity is still a theory with quite a few aspects poorly understood. For the longest time why bumblebees could fly went against our understanding of physics and yet they didnāt seem to care.
What made better wine grapes and cider apples was long understood before science researched it ad-nauseam, but researched it did; every aspect that can send an entire year of production the wrong path is carefully monitored and if possible adjusted for. Control of nitrogen is like the aforementioned electricity, not be completely understood, but quite repeatable in its application.
I wasnāt suggesting otherwise, only that those making wine and probably cider are more attuned to brix content than most growers of ātableā fruit.