Site Plan

Creating a site plan for your fruit tree orchard is essential for effective management.

A straightforward layout that indicates the location and type of each tree—such as apple, peach, pear, and plum—provides a clear reference for future care.The next step is to track harvest times and annotate this information on your plan. This will aid in scheduling pruning, maintenance, and harvesting tasks. Additionally, it helps you identify any gaps in the orchard, allowing for future plantings to rejuvenate the area with young trees as older ones decline. You can also use this information to introduce new varieties or fill in gaps in harvest seasons, enhancing the overall productivity and diversity of your orchard.Depending on how detailed you wanted to go, you could also include the location of water outlets, compost bins, worm farms, vegetable gardens and so on.

Fruit Tree Labelling

Labelling of fruit trees in the orchard enhances both the practical management of the orchard, and the visitor experience.

It assists in clear identification of the different tree species, making it easier for everyone to know which trees are which, and that the right tree gets the right treatment.

Labelling trees whilst they’re young ensures that no information is lost over time. A simple solution is a pointed and painted wooden stake hammered into the ground near to the stem but not too close that it damages the all-important tree roots.

Alongside naming and labelling of the trees, each tree may also be given a number, otherwise known as a Tree ID number. That way more specific information can easily be recorded and retrieved about the tree’s growth, fruiting times, yield, care, maintenance, pests and diseases, resilience, and treatment.

Creating an orchard journal or spreadsheet can be a valuable resource to reflect on over time. Given the transient nature of schools, journaling serves as an effective way to preserve important information, ensuring that knowledge is retained even as people move on.

These practices all help to foster a deeper awareness and understanding of the fruit trees, and an appreciation for horticulture.

 

The Benefits of Mulch

Woody and leafy mulch has so many benefits, here’s just three!

Moisture Retention: mulch helps to retain and maintain soil moisture levels, particularly beneficial during our long hot summers when we’re all on holiday!

Soil Temperature Regulation: mulch helps to maintain a more consistent soil temperature, keeping it cooler in summer protecting the roots from the heat of the sun.

Nutrient Enrichment: mulch is full of mycoryhizal (beneficial fungi) and as it decomposes these essential nutrients and fungi are added into the soil. Overall, this improves the tree’s natural immunity and ability to fight off pests and diseases themselves.

Don’t have access to any mulch?
Then leaving a few logs/wood/sticks/branches and leaves from pruned trees/shrubs tucked beneath the trees will also do good, and provide habitats for bees, insects, butterflies, and lizards further adding to the biodiversity of the area at the same time.

Remember
It is important that any matter left for decomposition is not mounded, or touching the stem of the fruit tree, and is no deeper than 100mm as this could encourage excess moisture resulting in the wrong type of pathogen growth, leading to wounds, infections, pests or disease.

Finally, the benefits of mulch contribute to healthier fruit trees that require less care, less water, and a more productive orchard overall.

 

Water!

Watering

During the hot summer months, fruit trees can experience heat stress which can negatively impact their growth and fruit production.

High temperatures can lead to wilting, leaf scorch or early leaf loss, or trees may even drop their fruit if they do not receive enough water.

Regular watering is essential to mitigate heat stress, ensuring that they have enough water to maintain their physiological functions of photosynthesis, nutrient uptake and food production.

Deep consistent watering encourages healthy root development and resilience against extreme heat, which ultimately results in better quality of fruit and yield.

In short…

  • Monitor rain over summer and where absent water fruit trees at least once a week.
  • Water the roots not the leaves.
  • The leaf pores (stomata) are small openings that enable the tree to regulate its transpiration rate. On hot days these are open as the tree attempts to cool itself down. As soon as water gets on the leaves, the stomata close meaning the tree can’t transpire anymore. So, leave the leaves to breath for the tree, and only water the roots.

Thinning Fruit

Thinning fruit is essential for good quality, healthy, consistent fruit year after year.

Why?
Thinning fruit reduces the loading on the tree branches that can lead to breakages. It allows sunlight and air penetration throughout the tree as sunlight is crucial for photosynthesis and provides the tree with the energy it needs to produce good quality fruit, and air circulation reduces the humidity around the foliage, allowing for effective transpiration, and minimises the risk of fungal diseases and pests.

When?
After flowering when you start to notice a heavy set of fruit coming on, meaning the fruit is small (about 2cm) and crowded looking, or the branches are already starting to bend under the weight, it is time to thin the fruit. Ideally the fruit should be thinned when it is still small, about the size of a marble (2cm).

How?
Firstly, remove any diseased or disfigured looking fruit from the branch. Then select the biggest fruit to keep and remove any other or crow

Thinning Fruit

ded smaller fruits around it. To thin, simply twist it off, bend the fruit backwards and snap it off, or pinch it off, or cut it off if it is larger. When selecting the fruit to keep, think about the size of the fruit when it is fully grown and ask yourself, will it have enough room? If not, more needs to be thinned.

      • Apples and Pears – leave 1 or 2 fruits per cluster, with about 15cm between clusters.
      • Plums, Nectarines, Peaches, Feijoas – aim for 5-10cm spacing between fruit.

Leaf Curl

What?

  • Leaf curl is a fungal infection, and/or indicates the tree is affected by environmental stress such as drought, overwatering, and/or temperature extremes, and/or potentially a lack of essential nutrients.
  • It is purely cosmetic and does not affect the fruit.

Why?

  • It is common for young fruit trees to experience leaf curl as they adjust to the transition from being in a very well cared for nursery environment to be thrown into the wild! It is a sign that the tree has not yet built up its own natural strength mechanisms to fight infection.
  • More established or older fruit trees with leaf curl tend to be because of environmental stress, soil conditions, over or under watering.

How to treat?

  • To improve the biological value of the soil, and ultimately the trees, it is recommended that a selection of beneficial underplanting’s is planted.

Choose from;

      • Alyssum, Borage, Buckwheat
      • Calendula, Chamomile, Chicory, Comfrey, Cornflower, Coriander, Cosmos
      • Dandelion, Fennel, Gazanias, Horseradish
      • Marigold, Mint, Nasturtium
      • Parsley, Phacelia, Poppies
      • Verbena Bonariensis

All of these add beneficial fungi to the soil whilst encouraging beneficial insects.

Regular pruning, even if it’s only a branch or two, will open the canopies, improving sunlight and wind penetration into and through the trees.

With ongoing applications of the above measures applied, the trees will (hopefully) develop their own strength and resilience to ward off pests and diseases in future.

 

Codling Moth

Who?

  • Codling moth is a grey-brown moth that lays its eggs on or near small fruits.
  • The larvae/caterpillar hatch and tunnel into the fruit and as they feed, push out a distinctive brown crumbly excrement. They then leave to pupate (turn from a caterpillar into a moth) leaving marks on the fruit.
  • The fruit is not able to be eaten as it may harbour bacteria or fungi that could cause illness.

How to treat or prevent?

  • If present, remove any fallen and infected fruit and dispose of it. DO NOT COMPOST.
  • Now is the right time to place a Codling Moth Pheromone trap in the tree(s) to attract the male codling moth as this ultimately helps reduce the number of hatching caterpillars.
  • The trap should remain in the tree(s) from September to March, the time the codling moth is most active, and usually one trap is enough for 3 – 5 fruit trees if they’re planted in relatively close proximity to each other. For trees planted some distance from each other, more traps will be required.

Codling Moth Pheromone traps are available from usual garden centres and hardware stores, or you could try making your own.

Make Your Own Codling Moth Trap

      1. Using an old 2ltr plastic milk bottle, first fill with 1.5ltr of water and mark the water line on the side of the bottle. Then empty and make a flap on the side (opposite the handle) by cutting above the line you just marked on the bottle, and cut the bottom and two sides of a flap. Leave the top uncut (attached) so that the rain can’t get in to dilute the mixture, but the moths can crawl up inside.

      1. Make up the mixture:

      • 1 cup Apple Cider vinegar
      • ⅓ cup dark molasses or treacle
      • ⅛ teaspoon ammonia
      • 1.5ltrs water
      1. Fill the bottle with this mixture, put the cap on and hang it the right way up on a strong branch by the handle using cloth strips to protect the tree limb from rubbing damage. Hanging it so the flap is facing down will prevent rain from collecting inside the bottle and diluting the mix.
      2. Replace the mixture every 2 weeks.

Give your Fruit Trees a Nitrogen Boost

Fruit trees are heavy feeders and need a lot of nitrogen to encourage leaf, and fruit growth.

A natural high-nitrogen liquid seaweed fertiliser sprayed onto the leaves will help combat nutrient deficiencies and fungal conditions and deter pests.

Make Your Own Organic Liquid Seaweed Fertiliser

Ingredients:

      • Dried seaweed (you can use varieties like kelp or bladderwrack)
      • Water
      • A container (bucket)
      • Optional: molasses or other organic ingredients for added nutrients

Instructions:

      1. Prepare the Seaweed: If using dried seaweed, chop it into smaller pieces to increase surface area. If you have fresh seaweed, rinse it well to remove salt and debris.
      2. Soaking: Place the seaweed in the container. Use about 1 part seaweed to 5 parts water. If desired, add a tablespoon of molasses to boost microbial activity.
      3. Fermentation: Cover the container loosely to allow gases to escape while keeping contaminants out. Let the mixture sit for 2 to 4 weeks, stirring occasionally. You might notice a strong odour, this is normal.
      4. Strain: After the fermentation period, strain the liquid through a fine mesh sieve or cloth to remove solid pieces. The remaining liquid is your fertilizer.
      5. Storage: Store the liquid in a sealed container. It can last for several months in a cool, dark place.

Usage:

      • Dilute the liquid fertilizer with water (usually 1 part fertiliser to 10 parts water) before applying it to your plants. Use it every 2-4 weeks during the growing season.

Benefits:

      • Seaweed fertilizer is rich in micronutrients, hormones, and enzymes that promote plant growth and improve soil health.

Yum!