Hi guys, i’ve been checking out the forum and passed through the last couple of years of topics. Great info!
I’m a junior fruit production and still know nothing and come to you for a begginer help.
1- What books about fruit trees in general do you recomend?
2- I have installed this winter, around 100 fruit trees of diverse families and around 100 forest trees in around 0.4h.
We have mild winters with very hot summers ( and getting hotter every year). The soil is very sandy, granite rock, and with around 1% organic matter content. Almost every tree is getting along ok apart from a few apples and pears ( we’ve putted local varieties).
This apples and pears have very small (or non existent) wood growth and leafs in small quantities and size.
I show you the agro forest in a photo and the specific trees in the others. If you can understand the content of the photo, what do you guys think is the problem there?
It’s too dry for the apples and pears esp new trees. It looks like you have hot dry summers. Which is what would be normal for your area. You’ll need to irrigate most fruits in summer esp apples and pears. They won’t fruit in a Mediterranean type climate without summer irrigation.
In addition to irrigation, removing all grass.weeds from around the base of each tree helps with water availability. I also am in a fairly dry environment (not as dry as you I would think from the pics), and had trouble growing apples until I put a 6’ (~2m) square of weed barrier around each tree (cut to fit around the trunk), with mulch over it.
It looks like you have some mulch around one of the trees in the pic, but weeds/grass seem to be growing right up to others. A larger mulched and weed free area around each tree along with some supplemental water should help a lot.
I thank you for taking your time to reply to my post. I really do, but please, reply to questions only.
In my environment all trees need watering in the first couple or three years. I used a machine to dig 1-2 cubic meters holes, added straw in them ( at the bottom and at mid depth) and cover them but leaving the soil of the hole 10-30 cm under of the surrounding ground and add around 5-20 cm of sheep bedding and straw as mulch. So, every winter, all the rain that falls in those holes, stay in the holes, that’s how old portuguese farmers used to do ( apart that they would fill the holes interily with manure).
I do water the trees. yes.
I have “The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist” by Michael Phillips. No idea how even remotely useful it is for someone in Portugal though. He is in New Hampshire about 100 km from the Canadian border here in the US, and his info doesn’t even completely fit here in the Midwest. But it is a good book about organic apple culture, in general. But definitely geared towards a cold climate.
Some additional information would be helpful.
When where those pictures taken? How much rain do you get yearly and during the hot season? What’s the soil ph? Have you had a soil analysis? @applenut has experience growing apples in Africa. Perhaps he has some advice.
The trees with little growth are suffering from root rot. Apples do not tolerate uncomposted organic matter in the planting holes, or manure for that matter. You would have been better off planting the trees in the soil, backfilling with native, and then piling all that organic matter on top. You also need to dig big planting holes; in the tropics we do five feet square by three feet deep for the planting holes for apples to break the soil up.
Applenut thank you for your feedback.
I’ve planted the trees in the native soil, that animal bedding is used as mulch only. The holes are bigger than the size you’ve mentioned. I’ve used the same technik to all plantings and to all apples and pears but some apples and pears look great and the others are the ones in the photos.
Danzeb, the photos wee taken on the 10th, normal years brings around 800-900mm of rain but we are experiencing severe drought this year, around 400-500mm maybe. The soil ph there is around 5, with granite rocks as a base.
Levers101, i’ve seen youtube videos of him, great info but like you said, the climate is very different
It was mentioned by someone here but there is no way your trees will survive Portuguese summers without water (especially apples and pears). @Jsacadura might be able to help you, he is from your country and using drip irrigation for his apples
I’m in California in climate similar to yours (mild wet winters and scorching hot dry summers). The difference is that my soil is hard clay. I irrigate all my plants (except some natives) from April to October. I use drip irrigation and run the irrigation system (multiple lines run consecutively) from late evening to early morning about three times a week. I think with your soil being sandy, regular irrigation is even more important. I think you need to do two things: install an irrigation system that can run regularly (drip or micro-sprinklers) and remove all weeds near the trees. These weeds out-compete young trees for water and nutrients.
Regarding books, I think some old books by Edward Wickson on fruit growing in California may still be useful for you since the climates are quite similar. For example, take a look at “The California Fruits and how to Grow Them” (Wickson, 1921), it’s freely available online.
Stan, thank you for your input. Do you know how much water you give to each tree each irrigation session? i’ve been giving 50/60 liters per week as i’ve been waiting for the bore hole company to dig one, next year i’m planning to give 1 cubic meter per tree by the end of May and see from there. I will try to get that book thanks.
So you think that the lack of growth s by root rot or lack of irrigation, i’m going to experiment adding more water to these trees to see what happens.
This actually is very similar to how much water I give per tree. However, I remove all weeds and grass near the trees, so the tree gets 100% of the water.
If you mix in palms, apricots, pomegranates, pistachios, autumn ollive and other drought hardy species among your apples and pears, they will likely not be smoked out so hard. Start with a corner of your farm and gradually move out in a shaded area. Then you will gradually have lush growth over the whole thing.
Check out Geoff Lawton, he does tons of work on greening the desert and turning dry areas into flourishing fertile food foundations.
JOhn S
PDX OR
JohnS, i have different varieties of pear, apple, pomegranate, apricot, plum, peache, olive, linden, mulberry,cherrys, carob, almond, service tree, strawberry tree, elderberry, hawthorn and myrtle trees/bushes. Palms hardly fruit in my climate and pistachios need male/female pair of trees to fruit (apart that the fruit in itself is not easy to have) so not a good choice for not that big orchard.
Good points Velhobarbudo.
What I meant was that if you start to densely plant in one corner of your lot, the trees can shade each other and the force of the hot sun isn’t so damaging to individual trees. The mycelium underneath can survive, and all of the microbiology too. Then you can gradually lengthen out the area of partial shading so it will be a more hospitable place that is spreading across your hot dry acreage into a cooler more shady area.
John S
PDX OR
