2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The apple tree is a fruit-bearing tree beloved by many summer residents and gardeners. It is impossible to imagine a single garden without it. In order for the fruit harvest to be of high quality and good, when growing a tree, special attention should be paid to the introduction of fertilizing components into the soil
Adding fertilizing components during the planting of apple trees
It is more competent and expedient to plant apple trees on fertile types of soil. However, loamy, sandy loam and deep turf soils are also suitable. However, all of them must be thoroughly and correctly moistened and loosened. At the same time, excess moisture is an unfavorable condition for growing an apple tree. The tree has a powerful root system that develops underground. It is interesting, but true - most often the roots of an apple tree are twice the size of the crown of a tree. The depth to which the root system of apple trees goes inward is at least sixty centimeters.
The apple tree is planted in holes specially prepared for this purpose. In the temperate climate of Russia, there are often depleted sod-podzolic soils. Here, a hole is needed not just to place the root system of a tree in it. Also, fertile soil is placed here, which enriches the plant with nutrients during the period of its development and life. The large size of such a hole allows the tree to develop much better. Typically, the width of the pit for planting an apple tree is about eighty centimeters to one meter. The depth is ninety centimeters. If the soil is fertile, then you should dig a hole exactly to the size of the root system.
The wells for planting are not prepared immediately before planting, but beforehand. If the apple trees are planted in the fall, then the preparation should be approached in one or one and a half months. This time is enough for the soil to ventilate. In the spring planting, the pits are prepared from the autumn period of the year. Although many summer residents run the risk of preparing in early spring after thawing the soil.
Here it is necessary to prepare a special fertile mixture. It should fill the holes two-thirds of the way. The mixture itself contains fertile soil and fertilizing components. First, a soil mixture is prepared next to the pit, but by no means inside it. Only then can the soil and fertilizers be mixed thoroughly and very well. For one planting hole, you need to use a couple of buckets of humus (or compost). Peat is added here in the amount of three or four buckets.
Fertilizers for apple trees are superphosphate and wood ash. Their number in the soil mixture will be one kilogram. Some gardeners use a slightly different scheme. They use the method of mixing superphosphate (1 part) with phosphate rock (4 parts). Such a mixture should be added to the pit in the amount of two kilograms. If it is not possible to use wood ash, then one hundred and fifty grams of potassium sulfate or one hundred grams of potassium chloride (in extreme cases) can replace it.
In the event that it is not possible to apply mineral fertilizers, only organic matter can be used. The most popular and effective elements here are humus and compost. Nitrogen-containing products should not be added to the potting mix for this reason. That they have a negative effect on plant survival. You should also avoid adding lime for the same reason.
You can also not add fresh manure to the fertile soil mixture. If, nevertheless, it is necessary to add it, then it is required to use semi-over-matured components. When fresh manure enters the lower part of the planting hole, it will no longer decompose due to oxygen deficiency. As a result, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide will begin to be detected, damaging the plant root system.
On sandy soils, care must be taken to reduce water permeability. To do this, loamy soil mixed with humus is placed in the lower zone of the planting hole. One layer is eight to ten centimeters long. As a rule, such types of soil require magnesium, due to which potash fertilizers are fed to apple trees in the form of potassiummag or potassium-magnesia.
If the planting of apple trees is planned in the spring season, then it is required to prepare the soil from October. If planting is planned in the fall, then the soil should be ready in advance for one and a half or two months. During the first digging, it is necessary to select the root shoots of perennial weeds. Only after that, fertilizing components are introduced and once again they dig up the territory where it is planned to plant fruiting apple trees.
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