Climate is several orders of magnitude more important than soil in determining ease and success of fruit production. Any decent soil can be made highly and dependably productive if climate is right. But without the right climate things like almonds aren’t even worth considering. The plains has equal or better almond soils than CA but 100% of almonds are in CA.
My greenhouse is another good example. I almost never miss a crop in my greenhouse, I’d say 95% production. Outdoors the same crops are maybe 0-30% production. Soil is the same.
Amad, I get it. You’ve done your research and are dealing with a soil and conditions I have no knowledge of. Back when I grew stuff on the west coast I didn’t even know about pH- just noticed that things grew extremely well under an alfalfa mulch, which probably compensates for most pH issues.
Read the book, consider the book but run by your own personal experience. Whatever works.
Amadioranch… When I was in West Texas we had similar soil and never suggested anyone apply sulfur to lower pH for the reasons you found out. However, it is common practice to raise pH by applying lime in East Texas. I know Womack Nursery suggest using Halford rootstock for high pH soils instead of Nemaguard rootstock that is usually suggested for Texas. Higher pH does not appear to be as limiting factor for most crops as low pH, with exceptions such as blueberries.
Phoenix soil is the Clark Kent of soil. Half the time its not there just rocks and caliche that is almost indistinguishable from the rocks. Just a thin, tan substance. Practically devoid of any organic matter. I used to get a kick out of the Starks growing instructions that say you should “soak the roots in water while you dig your hole and be careful to water the tree until it is established” a proper hole in Phoenix is a multi day undertaking unless you have power equipment. You will water that plant until it dies. Fine soil, despite its appearance.
Overrated growing climate though, with two short growing seasons and just enough freezing weather to kill tender plants. People back east just don’t understand the concept of rushing to harvest your crops before they burn up. I’ll wager most of them have never even seen a tomato stewed on the vine.
Digging here is all about moisture. Digging dry soil is best done with a pick. No fun. But, that rock hard soil turns into beautiful soil thats easy to sink a spade into if a day or two before it was watered. Your right, we have little organic matter. Not enough rainfall here to produce the growth to break down to make it. BUT! Other than a lack of nitrogen its is amazingly rich in everything else both major and minor. Add composted manure and its beautiful stuff to grow in. We love growing here. Yes it has its challenges, but few places outside Kalifornia can boast a 365 day a year grow season.
Thought I would follow up on my long term soil improvement strategies. My land is getting richer all the time and because of that my food production goes up all the time. Many sustainable crops are being grown in my orchard in between the rows. I target nitrogen fixing plants and then compost them back in. If I take 1000 pounds of pears out of my orchard or 1000 pounds of aronia or 100 pounds of blackberries in some way I need to put those things back. Years and years people took 40 bushels per acre of grain off this property and put nothing back. My hay ground raised thousands of cows and thousands of bales of hay but none of those farmers once put anything back. How much calcium goes out from your land when you take in a load of 35 head of cows once a year? The bones alone are very heavy! What are they made of? How much phosphorous or other minerals do you lose when 100 1000 bales of hay go out of here every year? My strategies are fairly simple which is produce more hay and keep the ground healthier! Produce more fruit and get more food to eat out of the same dirt but make it sustainable. Here a few picture from today! This year I made a deal for a flat price for hay. He paid $20 per acre and could keep the hay but he applied 150 pounds of nitrogen. The hay field percentages alone due to the addition of clover have went up at least 15%. This year was a wet year so he got 140 1000 pounds bails of hay. I’m very pleased with the results and am getting close to the break even point every year. Soon there will be profit and as you can see the ground is healthy again! When I got this land it would not grow tomatoes. Some native plants I grow as bulk material and for beauty! Native plants also correct soil problems. We have weedy gardens sometimes because the weeds are trying to counter an imbalance. Proof can be seen if you play close attention to plants such as lambs quarter that grow in old stock yards due to the rich cow or pig manure. Many weeds correct things and once they do they disappear. Poor ground grows Mullein, wet ground grows elderberries and so on and so forth. Around my trees I use composted wood chips to improve the soil
KYWeaver,
That’s absolutely true! We know great soil is good for plants! Like the food we eat if we eat poor quality food it causes our health to be poor. Poor soil kills plants , stunts their growth, causes them to be susceptible to disease. Compost is very good for fruit trees and I see immediate improvement Unless we overdue things and cause excessive growth.
You probably know fruits generally don’t remove many nutrients (probably because they are mostly water). A heavy crop of peaches removes about 12 lbs. of P2O5 per acre and 4 to 5 times the amount of K.
Sounds like your soil was pretty deficient to start with and is starting to produce well.
I have grown accustomed to rich soil and I like it for peach trees. I’ve grown vigorous peach trees and trees with poor vigor. I prefer the former because it generally guarantees plenty of good fruiting wood. The one thing I don’t like about rich soil is that it holds too much water.
Yes this soil was farmed out Olpea. There was no organic material in the soil from repeated application of anhydrous and other nitrogen based fertilizers. Many spots would not even grow weeds. There was tons of residual herbicides and pesticides when I got the place. It raised round up ready beans and wheat and that was it. You could grow that stuff in sand! It took me 4 years to get grass to grow in my yard. It was an awful lot of work to get it to this point.
I don’t have much land, but it had mostly reverted to forest when I moved here so the soil was vital and well suited for fruit trees. It is not like the clay loam soil on most farms around here that are insanely productive and when the rain stops the soil dries out quickly, but in the northeast that is a good thing usually for growing fruit- just not the most productive soil for corn or vegetable crops.
I’ve built up the soil a bit too much under most of my orchard trees and so I’m going to change how I manage them and see if it doesn’t raise brix by letting sod grow right up to the trunks, even for my peach trees. I would like to dial down their vigor a notch because at sites I manage trees with somewhat less vigor that have a tad higher brix.
On the other hand, I have a 25 year old peach tree that still grows like a kid and is productive as any tree in my orchard. This doesn’t happen in lesser soils. I will just have to see how it works out to change my methods.
In general, fruit trees will like more fungi in the soil than berry bushes and much more than vegies, so putting more wood chips in the soil is a great idea. I also do the put back in what I took out" philosophy Clark. I’ve got enough variety from different families that I can throw old quinces under a cherry tree, apples under a paw paw tree, etc. It keeps the diversity in the soil. Varieties of mushrooms growing naturally is also a measure of and an indication to that it is becoming more naturally stable/insulated and provideing more micro and other nutrients. As my orchard has grown, I have enough diversity of leaves and wood to add to the fungi in the soil and make biochar.
John S
PDX OR
What the peer-reviewed plant biology literature calls “biochar” and the feel-good advertiser-hyped natural gardening literature call “biochar” are two different things.
Now, if you think adding a moderate amount of thoroughly composted wood chips to your soil mix is a good idea – so do I. But it’s not biochar. Further – in balance to the organics I believe there should also be a moderate amount of igneous or metamorphic inorganics on the quarry scale of “3/32-”.
Richard brought up this post from the distant past, but I will comment on the John S comment anyway.
Make that ON the soil, unless you have a way to give both the bacteria and the trees the nitrogen they need. In well aerated soil, the bacteria will seize most of the available N if you put a lot of wood chips in the soil.
Yes, I agree with Alan. I was typing too fast. You want fungal material in the soil. you get that by putting wood chips on the soil, which will be taken down and decomposed by worms and microfungi. Then it is bioavailable to the plants without robbing the soil of nitrogen. Thanks for catching that.
John S
PDX OR
I like to consider the soil created by the trees themselves, especially to compare forest soils with prairie soils. Prairie soils tend to get churned by hooved animals and create a fairly deep homogeneous layer of top soil- perfect for corn, soybeans and, of course all manner of herbaceous meadow plants. Trees are self mulching and create a parfait of relatively thin layers and the distinct differences serve their needs. In early spring when the soil is excessively cool and wet for vigorous growth the airy layer of humus directly below the layer of partially rotten leaves that are below the layer of fresher leaves (which help prevent erosion and provide insulation) provides the perfect place to start active growth of fine roots- they actually grow during the winter somewhat, but really take off in early spring right up into the partially rotten leaves. As the soil warms up this layer is often rapidly dehydrated and the most vigorous root activity starts to occur in the next lower layer of finer top soil that is a humus-soil mix. On a normal year, the activity moves downward as rainfall fails to keep up with what the trees remove above, but in wet years most activity may stay near the top but the parfait is a very economical soil system that makes best use of the organic matter for the trees needs. I try to imitate that when establishing trees.
Alan,
Very good approach and exactly what I want long term. As the leaves fall from my pears the soil is richer and water is retained better. My pear tree roots get deeper every year bringing up more nutrients from deeper in the ground where it’s never been farmed before. In time the approach I’m using will completely correct the deficiencies in my land but it’s unlikely I can do it in my lifetime. In addition I grow mostly full sized pear trees which are not only more deer proof but gain access to more nutrients & water from deeper down than dwarf trees because of longer roots which in turn makes them more drought tolerant and healthier.
You are transforming your soil with your trees into tree soil, not restoring it to its natural state. Our prairie soils have been a huge asset as the “bread basket of the world” but the relatively extreme weather of the midwest make tilling a soil losing proposition. There was a Kansas man of some fame (Jackson?) who was trying to breed productive perennial wheat, but he never managed to get around the principle that annual plants are so productive of seed because they save nothing for themselves to get through winter. I assume an acre of pear trees produces far few calories through its fruit than an acre of corn.
I admire your idealism- meanwhile I cut down native species to make room for more fruit trees. I have lousy (by commercial production standards) corn soil but its great for trees. I actually use mulch hay a lot as mulch for my nursery trees because it’s lighter than wood chips, so in a way, I’m doing the opposite as you.
I thought hay broke down to compost just like wood chips break down to compost, and pretty much everything else organic. So how are you doing something opposite to a person that puts down wood chips?
I’m cutting down big trees is the main thing. The hay contains seeds of meadow plants that establish in the more open space of my nursery. The big trees close off the sky pretty thoroughly and would keep them from establishing well.
