To: mailing list at ibiblio - Northamerican Allied Fruit Experimenters <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [nafex] mulching trees
Date: Mon, 25 May 2015 14:42:14 -0400
Yhere’s little empirical support for the use of ramial wood chips, as opposed
to any old wood chips. All the theories about white rots, brown rots,
softwood mulch, etc. sound very solid but haven’t been shown — as far as I
know — to hold water in practice. I’ve seen the Canadian paper that everyone
refers to in support of ramial wood chips; basically, if you read it
carefully, it promotes use of ramial wood chips without any supporting data.
Michael Phillips reference to ramial wood chips rightly points out the higher
nutrient composition of this younger wood. But nutrients can be added, if
needed, which is not usually the case after wood chip mulch of any kind has
been used and replenished over the years. He’s wrong about any wood chip
mulch robbing nitrogen from plants during decomposition. As a mulch,
decomposition is slow and at the interface of soil and mulch. A steady state
is achieved with nitrogen being re-released into the soil at about the same
rate as it’s being tied up. This is not only theory: I and many others have
noticed this in practice. It is when wood material is mixed into the soil
that plants get temporarily starved for nitrogen.
Practically any material is valuable as mulch. I would not turn away a source
of wood chips made from older wood. The important point is to keep the ground
covered with whatever you can get your hands on.
Books by Lee Reich:
A Northeast Gardener's Year
The Pruning Book
Weedless Gardening
Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden
Landscaping with Fruit
Grow Fruit Naturally