bruce:

My feeling is that too much manure could cause the trees to have excessive vigor. An application of 10 to 20 tons per acre of manure will get your trees off to a good start. Past that you may run into excess vigor problems. So I'd say put on a reasonable amount of manure or whatever else you have and then hold off until you see that the growth is like.

I wouldn't worry about nutrients until the tree has been established. What i would worry about is water drainage. If it doesn't drain well, you may have to incorporate a lot of that organic matter before hand.

...of course adding significant amounts of organic matter could make the drainage scenario much worse, depending on native soil factors, by creating a perched water table. If subsurface drainage is good now, this is probably not a concern, but you didn't say whether you had decent drainage or not.

Bruce,

It sounds like you have very heavy clay. 1.5% organic matter is pretty low (mine runs 5%). From memory, it seems like 3% is recommended as a minimum (I'm talking commercial recommendations here).

So I think you're on the right track to incorporate organic matter before planting. How much organic matter (OM) to incorporate, I don't know, but I would think with such low OM it would be difficult to incorporate too much.

I agree with the drainage concerns. If you get a lot of rain, I would seriously consider planting on terraces.

1% organic matter is very low for uncultivated soil as Olpea stated and very unusual for a heavy soil where organic matter takes more time to break down.

I would take samples of top and subsoil and get specific recommendations about amending the soil right now. Adding organic matter sounds like a good idea but it may not be enough. I can see no way that additonal organic matter could be damaging to drainage- I thought perched water table was the result of coarser soil below finer soil- not the reverse.

If drainage is an issue, you can use your equipment to raise the soil in the mid rows above the middles.

Perhaps your cooperative extension would be a useful resource to get local advice. Our taxes are paying for it.

Oh,and for increasing the organic matter in the soil, best to use the more composted manure and thoroughly mix it with the top 6 to 12 inches of existing soil.

Ok I dug out my soil tests from when this was part of my field 5 years ago. It has been in brome grass sod so the top layer has improved some in organic matter but basic soil will be the same.
organic matter 1.8
phosphourus 19ppm Medium
k 671 very high
mag 671 very high
ca 2260 medium
sulfur 13 medium
zinc .8 low
pH 7.2
nitrogen 63 lb/acre
Crop recomendation were for sulfur, zinc and phos small amount of n this was for oats or milo.
perched water table could be a problem. this soil absorbs water slowly, heavy fast rains tend to cause some run off. Therefore if I increase organic matter in the top part of the soil absorbtion will increase there and when reaching subsoil may pool for a while.
This is what I am thinking. Deep rip soil 3' deep and incorporate organic matter then build 3' terrace 12' wide to plant on. Comments. I had not thought of the perched water table, which is why I came here, seems someone always comes up with something I neglected to consider.
Olpea Do you know a site that gives optimal soil nutrient levels for fruit trees I have searched the net with no luck. Thank to all.

Bruce,

As I'm sure you know from farming, optimizing soil nutrients can be a complicated science. Too much of one nutrient can change the optimum level needed of another. The nice thing about a good lab, is that they take all that into consideration (at least their supposed to). I've used A & L labs, and they do provide recommendations for fruit crops.

Once in production, most fertilizer recommendations for fruits are based mostly on leaf analysis, vs. soil samples.

For a new orchard Ontario's Website has some general recommendations as a baseline (See link below).

They list soil level (ppm) recommendations for P,K,Mg, but list foliar recommendations for other nutrients.

As another baseline to compare, here is the results of my last soil test. The test was done for peaches, which would be slightly different than apples (everything is in ppm, except pH and OM):

OM - 4.9%
P (BrayP1)- 21 Medium
K - 166 Medium
Mg - 375 High
Ca - 2850 Medium
pH - 6.4
Buffer pH - 6.8
CEC 20.2
S - 20 Very High
Zn - 3.9 Medium
Fe - 38 High
Cu - 4.0 Very High
B - 1.1 Medium

Lastly, in thumbing through the file, I came across this that you may be interested in. Chris Doll indicates cropping removes the following nutrients:

400 bu/acre apple crop removes: 20 lbs. of N, 7 lbs. of P, and 30 lbs. of potash.

250 bu/acre peaches removed: 30 lbs. of N, 15 lbs. of P, and 55 lbs. of potash.

That's just what the crop removes. Removing leaves and wood removes more nutrients.

He didn't say how much micros were removed, but I know apples are relatively heavy feeders of boron, and peaches of zinc. But don't overdo either one (especially boron) or it will kill your soil. Around 4 ppm boron in the soil will kill everything.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fertilizing Apple Trees

bruce:

You won't find optimum levels expressed as soil nutrients. You don't necessarily even need all the soil test values in the high range. But those ranges are as good a guide as you will find. That is what they are for. Just remember that medium vigor is better in most cases for fruit trees than high vigor, at least after bearing begins.

What you will find is optimum plant leaf tissue levels. You should find those values somewhere but obviously they won't help you now.

What is shown in your soil test results will grow fine fruit trees with nothing more added. You said this is good crop land. I don't know if you are in corn country but corn and soybeans need higher levels of nutrients than fruit trees. A field that will grow 150-200 bu/acre corn will grow a huge fruit tree, too huge. Corn and soybeans also like wetter soil than fruit trees.

Your problem appears to be drainage not nutrition. Build a high bed to plant on and check the leaf tissue analysis in a couple years. That and how the plants are growing will tell the story.

I pretty much agree with fruitnut. Fruit trees don't generally need rich soil and 1.8 is not as freakish # as would be 1. It simply indicates a probability that the soil has a history of being tilled, which breaks down OM.

The way plants extract nutrients from the soil is complicated and not made clear by an acid wash for a quick extraction of available nutrients (your basic soil test). That just offers a very rough guideline as FN indicated.

I think tilling in a lot of organic matter may indeed create excessively vigorous growth as FN suggests- especially tons of it to a depth of 3', particularly rotted manure.

You need to know the source of poor drainage. Is it strictly soil texture or a perched water table for other reasons? Hard pan from grazing animals or machinery, a coarser subsoil or compaction for any reason could all be responsible.

Lots of organic matter would only be helpful to drainage if the issue is only high clay content, but you do have to be careful not to overly invigorate the fruit trees.

What you are defining as a terrace but what I think of as a bern will probably serve you well no matter the source of your drainage issue. I believe a terrace is actually like steps on steep hills to hold soil against erosion and catch water. Balinese agriculture essentially

I'd dig a large hole to evaluate the soil profile and see if there are any answers there.

I'm committed to a sustainable garden which only uses things I find in my yard for soil amending. As I don't have animals, I don't use manure. The apple tree I planted this year is off to a good start and appears healthy. One thing I did is put a compost bin uphill about 3 feet away from the tree. I made it from 10 feet of 2 x 4 hogwire that is 3 feet tall and just made a cylinder with it.

Since then, I put another compost bin on the downhill side.

The thought is this will provide a slow release of nutrients into the root zone. As the tree gets bigger, I'll put in some more compost bins further out from the first ones.

I don't plan on ever emptying the bins for other areas of the garden. Just add to the top as it compacts and stuff leaks out the sides and bottom a bit. They are very low maintenance bins. I just throw stuff in them as it becomes available from the garden.

Thanks folks as I stated in my initial ? I was concerned about getting the soil to good. Sounds like it is good enough with a mulch to start. Probably just deep rip and build berms.

A post hole digger that attaches to your tractor's PTO is a great back saver. You can use it to dig a hole 3 feet deep to break through the hardpan of the subsoil, then fill the hole back up with soil and tamp it down to remove voids.

Digging more post holes 4 or 5 holes a few feet from the planting hole and filling them with manure and other organic matter can help. The manure will have time to rot before the young trees' root reach out to it. The increased organic matter down below 2 feet will encourage the earthworms in the soil to explore down a few feet rather than staying in the top few inches of topsoil.

Breaking the hardpan is important to allow drainage. It will also help the tree's roots to go down deep where they can get plenty of water when they are mature. This will help you not have to water them during periods of less rainfall when they are mature.

I wholeheartly agree with GTIPPITT about using the post hole digger arond your trees. Drainage more than nutriten will be your problem in clay. I lost a 5 grafted apple because I made a grest large hole full of nutriten and it acted like a pot and drowned the tree.