5 Tips to Take Care for Fruit Trees | Fruit Orchard

Hello everyone this is Jag. In this video I'm going to cover five tips you need to know to care for newly planted fruit trees. Now as you might have known we've planted about 500 fruit trees in about three and a half acres and they're doing spectacular. You know I have all sorts of cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums. Every single tree is doing good and every single one made it. So we have 100% success rate. So I'm really excited about that. So in this video I'm going to give you an update and also share five tips with you on how to care for fruit trees as well. So let's get started. Tip number one pruning the fruit trees. Well check out this apricot tree. It's doing really well but there's one thing we need to be concerned about is it's that growth at the bottom of the tree. So all of these trees are grafted so any growth that comes out of the bottom of the tree is not going to be true to the plant that's going to produce fruit. So we need to get rid of that. So as you can see the tree was grafted right here. So all of this growth is coming out from the rootstock not from the actual tree that's going to produce fruit. So we need to get rid of it so that we actually are not growing a tree that is you know is used for growing rootstocks. We want the tree that produces fruit. Now also when pruning the trees if you don't want any growth certain a point for example I don't want any growth below this this point right here just get rid of any new birds that are forming below that that area. So I want my trees to fan out from here on I don't want a lot of growth underneath. Now this tree is doing really well and as you can see it's producing a lot of stems from this just one area and that's going to fill in the middle of the of the tree. What we want is the middle to be open and have all the stems all around the tree so that it gets sunlight from top down in the middle of the tree as well. So thin out any extra stems that you don't want that's they're growing inside of the tree and you can do this as the tree is growing so that they don't it doesn't spend all this energy growing into the stems and you actually you know are going to get rid of it anyway so all the energy is wasted. So do that while the tree is growing. So I'm taking out all the stems that are growing inwards from all of this for all of these outer stems. For example here I already have one bud here another bud right there and then I also have a bud here and also another bud right there. This bud and this bud is going to fill in the middle so I'm going to get rid of this one and this one and this bud and this bud is going to grow outwards. I'm going to train this tree to grow outwards and have an empty middle so that you know it gets all the sunlight and also it's harder to pick all the fruit that's inside of the tree. It's easier to pick fruit on the perimeter of the tree so it's a good idea to actually have the inside of the tree open. Well that brings us to our tip number two growing cover crop. Now growing cover crop is actually pretty important because you want to maintain the biology in the soil and also encourage beneficial bacterias and all the beneficial microbes in the soil as well and what does that? Root development. So as you can see there's a lot of cover crop growing in between these rows and all of this cover crop helps to keep the soil loose. It helps to not get the soil get too compacted. All the roots that grow inside this ground they keep the soil loose which is very important as well. So there's a lot of different types of cover crops you can grow. You can grow winter rye, alfalfa, you can grow wild grasses that are native to your land as well and all of these roots help to increase the microbial activity in the soil and keep the soil loose as well. So all of that cover crop was back in April after the winter rains and since then we have mowed down all the cover crop and we use it as mulch to provide nutrients back into the soil. So let me show you what it looks like now. So here's what it looks like. It's like having straw on your ground so it's providing a lot of nutrients back into the soil. It's going to disintegrate, degrade and go back into the ground. So this is how an orchard looked like back in April and all the ground is covered in cover crop. On the left side you can also see another section and we planted blackberries, raspberries, grapes and strawberries in there as well. This is how an orchard looks like now. So in summer we don't have any water in between the rows. So all the grass, all the cover crop dried off in summer. So we just mowed it and used it as mulch and only grass that's remaining is just around the trees where the trees are getting water from sprinklers. Check out all of these trees. So this is August. We planted these in February. So I gave you an update in back in April and now it's August and all of the cover crop in the middle has been mowed down. We have a lot of grass growing in on the perimeter of all of these trees because we have sprinklers that provide water. So all the weeds and grass are growing around the trees because of that. Well look at these cherry trees. These cherry trees are bright green and they're very healthy. Most commercial orchards use Roundup on their berms to get rid of the weeds. So when we planted all of these trees there were lots of weeds that are growing on the berms. Now we can chop and drop all the weeds that are in the middle of the row with the tractor but we can't take the tractor on top of the berms. So I started asking everybody what do they do? Every single orchard uses Roundup. So that's the difference between growing organic produce and conventional because almost all conventional produce you know is grown using Roundup to control weeds and they use chemical fertilizer and chemical pesticides on top of that as well. So in order to mitigate weeds on this farm since we are all organic we're going to use weed fabric. So I did a test run here. I let it run for a month and I'm going to see how it does and it's actually being very effective in blocking the weeds from coming up. So let me show you a little bit of that. As you can see weeds are coming around the weed block but not where the berms are. So all the berms are protected through the weed block. As you can see there are no weeds on the berm. There are weeds on the side which we can easily get rid of using a mower with the tractor. So the next step is going to be tarping all of these berms with weed block to prevent weeds from growing on the berms. So tip number three watering. Now watering is very crucial. Now we have clay soil it retains moisture very well. Now if you want to about how often how much to water your plants or your trees I made a separate video about that where I cover watering in detail. However in this video I'll cover how you should be watering your fruit trees. So we have clay soil so when it rains you know we that we planted our all of our trees on berms. The reason we did that is so that the trees sit a little bit above the rest of the ground. So if there's enough rain and the water is standing on the ground the root you know the crown of the trees and the and the roots of the trees are sitting above the water level and they don't do not drown in the water. Now when it got hot so just about three weeks ago our temperature here got up to 103-104 degrees Fahrenheit which is about 40 degrees Celsius. Now we only get about you know four to five days of you know triple digits here you know in the south of Sacramento and we get a delta breeze from the ocean in the morning and the evening. So our temperature in the morning and the evenings even in the summer is about 60 degrees and during the day it's in usually it's 90s. But we did get a heat wave and when we got the heat wave I was watering my trees every other day. Now I was not watering them every day and here's the reason why. Because when I water my trees I water them very deeply. I turn on the sprinklers 11 o'clock at night and I turn them off at six o'clock in the morning. So I water them for seven hours and these sprinklers provide four gallons an hour. So each one of these trees is getting 28 gallons throughout the night and I'm covering about 10 foot diameter you know with that sprinkler to soak that ground all the way down to two to three feet deep so the roots grow into the ground and they chase the water down ground. Now now it's about you know 89 to 90 degrees during the day so it's not as hot so I'm watering about two to three times a week about two times a week right now. So I go with my moisture checking probe and I insert it into the ground and I check to see how much is moisture level at about one foot depth. So if the moisture level is about 40 percent or low then I start watering again. If the moisture level is let's say seven to eighty percent I do not water because I do not want to waterlog my roots. So let me show you how I check with the moisture meter as well. So let me clearly show you the readings here. So I have that at moist and check it out. It's 70 to 80 percent and this also detects pH and light but I don't think this meter is as good at detecting pH level. You need those pH level testing kits to do that but for moisture it does well. All the peach and nectarine trees have all the new growth and they're doing really well and they're bright green. These trees are getting really big really fast and that's what we want. So in fall when all the leaves drop from these trees we'll give them another final pruning which will set them up for the growth next year. Tip number four fertilizing. Now when you plant your trees do not give them a lot of fertilizer right near the roots. If you do want to provide some fertilizer to your fruit trees when you plant them sprinkle the fertilizer around the tree away from the roots so the roots grow into the fertilizer. Never give fertilizer directly to the roots because that can actually burn the roots. Now at our organic farm we always use organic fertilizer. We use chicken manure, horse manure, cow manure and we use compost. So when we planted these trees we gave them a little bit of compost in the beginning. So two months after planting we gave our trees pelleted chicken fertilizer which is a 4-4-2 fertilizer and we provided about two pounds of fertilizer per tree but we just didn't drop the fertilizer all near the root of the tree either. We actually sprinkled it around in seven to eight feet diameter around the tree and I had another problem. I ran double drip system on my on each one of my berms. Now the problem was that that was not providing enough water in a big diameter. It was not water was not getting up to seven to eight feet diameter so I wanted to be able to the roots of the trees to grow in much vigorously and much larger into the ground and much further. So I actually used sprinklers on one of my lines and it disconnected the other line so I can use the other line in the middle of these rows to plant something else such as potatoes sunflowers or anything else and I kept one line on the berm with the trees with sprinklers. So each one of these sprinklers provides four gallons per hour like I said before and it covers 10 foot diameter around the tree. This covers the area around the tree really well for the roots to spread out. So this is the pelleted chicken fertilizer that I like to use and this is 4-4-2 and I use two pounds per tree. So if you're using something like 8-4-2 or 8-6-4 something like that you want to use half of this you want to use half of the nitrogen so you want to use one pound of it around your tree and if you're using chemical fertilizer which I really don't like those are they have really high NPK they are like triple 16s or 16-12-10 something like that and if you if you wish to use those even though I don't like them you only want to use handful or 10 tablespoons depending on the recommendation by the manufacturer and those are the ones that can really burn the trees because of high nitrogen content. So be very careful in using the fertilizer and I recommend always using the organic fertilizer. Here's the pelleted chicken manure fertilizer we put down in the ground it's been slowly disintegrating into the ground to provide nutrients to the trees. This provides slow release nutrients which actually sustains the trees all throughout the summer. We also applied gypsum in the ground around the trees as well I basically hooked up a spreader in the back of my tractor and applied gypsum all throughout the fruit orchard. Gypsum basically adds calcium to the soil and also makes the ground more permeable so it makes the ground softer for the roots to grow as well. If you have sandy soil or sandy loam soil you don't actually have to use gypsum unless you want to add calcium into the soil without raising the pH level. So you can also add lime which contains calcium too but lime also raises the pH level of your soil, gypsum does not. However you can if you want to apply more types of fertilizer you can also use fish fertilizer, you can use bone meal, feather meal, you can also use more cow manure, you can contact your local dairies and my neighbors have horses so I always get horse manure from them as well. So make sure all of the manure is at least nine months aged before you apply to your trees or your orchard or even your plants otherwise the manure can be really hot and it can contain a lot of nitrogen and that can burn your trees too. I also made a video on eight natural fertilizer you can use in your garden or your farm so check that video out if you're interested I'll leave a link to that video in the description. Now number five pesticides. Now you don't want to be using chemical pesticides and on that note you don't want to be using chemical fertilizers either. Both chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides they actually kill the microbial activity in the soil so that is disaster for soil. You want to have living soil. I made another video on how to have living soil as well so check that out too. So always use organic fertilizers and organic pesticides. Now what I like to use is pure castile soap with some neem oil. So currently these trees don't really need much pesticides you know but as soon as I see or I detect anything any pest activity or I see the leaves being eaten or something like that then I'll spray with some neem oil and some pure castile soap as well. To create your pesticide solution you can use one tablespoon of neem oil with one tablespoon of pure castile soap with one gallon of water. That's about 3.5 to 3.7 liters of water. So that makes enough dilution for the trees not to get hurt from neem oil because if you overdo the soap and neem oil you can hurt your plants and your trees as well. So don't go nuts with spraying lots of neem oil and and soap on your plants. You know that will actually make your leaves actually yellow or brown and usually burn the leaves too. So organic gardening and farming is all about having a very well balanced. You want to have microbial activity, you want to attract beneficial insects such as aphids, lacewings, you want to attract bees for pollination and for that you don't want to be using chemical pesticides. So you know there are few other organic pesticides that are on the market as well but they some of them do hurt the bees so be careful about that as well. So I really hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you're enjoying the progress of this farm as well and I'll see you in another video.