permaculture

[lbsaltzman@aol.com]

It sounds like you are using chemical fertilizers, iff so stop immediately.  
My fruit trees are mulched, through chop and drop, and natural leaf fall . As 
that material composts in place it forms the bulk of the fertilizer that is 
applied. We supplement with aged horse manure.  Heavy chemical fertilizing is 
going to significantly degrade the microbiological activity in the soil.  If 
you want to fertilize use a good organic fertilizer that will break down more 
slowly.  Without seeing the trees it is hard to know what to tell you, but 
you may have to prune dead wood off.  Build healthy soil and watch how they 
recover.

Larry





-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Sherman <spsherm@msn.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sun, Jul 11, 2010 4:08 pm
Subject: [permaculture] "Repairing" winter kill apple & pear trees


This last winter was a hard one for the orchard. Winter came on with little 
or no fall and started with temps near 0F and 50mph winds. The winter was 
cold and long as well. Additionally some deer "pruned" many of the trees in 
late summer/early fall which caused them to start re-growing just before the 
cold snap. And I was probably a bit too generous with N fertilizer in last 
spring leading to prolonged/late growth period. 
 
All in all a bad combo for the fruit trees. Any one would not have been much 
of a problem, but all three really knocked them for a loop. About 15% (mostly 
young ones and stone fruits) died outright. Many died on their upper parts, 
but are leafing out on their lowest branches/trunk. The bigger/older trees 
only show dead branches at their tips. However none of the trees which made 
it are growing well. Few leaves, and only 3" of growth (whereas usually they 
would be at 6-8" of growth by now). And I notice that the buds at the end of 
the branches are just now starting to burst and leaf out. Clearly they are 
stressed. 
 
So my question, is anyone familiar with proper techniques for helping fruit 
trees to recover from winter kill? Obviously replace the dead ones, but what 
if anything can be done for the stressed live ones. I've resisted putting a 
bunch more hi N fertilizer on, although that will improve growth this year it 
will likely cause a repeat of last years winter kill. Would hi P or K 
fertilizers be helpful? Other things? 
 
TIA 
 
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