I had talked to Tom at Cloud Mountain about clover in the rows for
nitrogen fixing (he used a creeping red fescue that didn't need much
mowing). He'd said that the legumes shed a pulse of nitrogen in fall as
they go dormant, just as he's trying to get his trees to shut down for
the year. If a warm snap hits after the N-pulse, he'd get a push of
growth that will burn back when winter hits for real. He's in a pretty
wild weather area, so I don't know if that holds for all regions.
This is one of those commercial vs homestead scale issues....
it seems a
shame to rip out a bunch of mature producing trees just to introduce
some diversity, unless there's a problem, either existing or imminent.
Like all of these decisions, it depends on the context of the
property...is it a cash crop, or a hobby?
Are they all just a couple of
varieties, or is there a wide diversity of them?
And how big is the
orchard? And what's nearby?
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