A Recipe for Organic Fall Orchard Care

As the vibrant colors of fall transform the landscape, and we are busy harvesting the literal fruits of our labour this year, its crucial to remember to add fall tree cares steps to your orchard calendar. This program helps prepare trees for winter, sets the stage for reduced pests and disease load next year, and creates the foundation for a bountiful harvest in spring. As organic farmers we can't leave any tool underused in our quests for healthy trees and good fruit, especially when they are as simple as these steps listed below!

Orchard Floor Management

Managing the orchard floor is essential for the health of your apple and pear trees. A clean, well-kept orchard reduces the risk of pests and diseases. Begin by raking up fallen leaves and debris, which can harbor pests like the coddling moth and diseases such as apple scab. Removing this organic matter disrupts the life cycles of harmful insects and minimizes the potential for innoculum next spring.

Flail mowing is a good alternative to raking on a larger scale. This method breaks down fallen leaves into smaller pieces, enabling faster decomposition and returning valuable nutrients to the soil.

The ideal orchard floor area also includes both ground cover (like cover crops) and mulch. Cover crops affect the soil and orchard temperature and soil moisture for the positive, however they can compete with young trees for nutrients and water, and they can be a habitat for vertebrate pests such as voles and insect pests.  You can use mulching, mowing, tilling, or clever to help keep these plants in balance and doing the work for you rather than against you. There are so so many beneficial plants you can choose here, this is likely going to be a post on its own later, but for many of us on the West Coast, now is an ideal time to sow seeds and plant perennials in, or next to, the orchard!

What to add to your orchard at this time of year

Lime: Soil pH is critical for the vitality of your apple and pear trees. If the soil is too acidic (pH below 6.0), nutrient absorption declines. This fall, consider adding lime to neutralize the pH and create better growing conditions. A soil test will guide you in determining the correct pH and the necessary amount of lime.

Microbes: Enhancing soil health is simple with the use of beneficial microbes such as effective microbes or compost tea. These organic solutions introduce helpful bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter, read: help breakdown leftover leaves. Use the orchardists best friend: the back pack sprayer, to apply these solutions to leaves, trunk and ground around trees.

Water: Most folks skip this simple step, but most rain is not yet penetrating the soil surface in a meaningful way. Allowing your trees to go into dormancy in a drought status does them a great disservice, roots are active under to soil much later into the season and earlier next season than we see evidence of. Aim for deep watering sessions every 10 to 14 days through September and October at least.

Follow this fall recipe for healthy fruit trees:

• First rake your orchard floor of fruit material (fruit, dead leaves).

  
  

• Refresh your weed-free zone in young trees under 5 years old, ideally a 2ft diameter circle. Chopping down weeds at the root and turning them upside down to decompose or compost elsewhere. 

  
  

• Reapply a thick layer of mulch 4-6inches deep. Put no mulch right at the trunk of the tree, leave it open to the air. Use mulch from hardwood trees ideally and avoid cedar and other toxic plant mulch. Mulching can actually be done 2x a year, again in June-ish. Feel free to add beneficial microbes to your mulch by adding wood chips from last year with white fungal mycelia running throughout, or compost tea, or effective microbes and water in. 

  
  

• Sow cover crops directly into the edge of the mulch ring and or alleyways. In the spring you can use the "chop and drop” method to prevent competition with the trees before re-applying mulch. Crops can also be sown in blocks nearby, this is especially true if your main goal is attracting beneficial insects. 

  
  

• Sprinkle lime throughout orchard floor, there are some great calculators online to help you determine how much lime for the size of your orchard. It is hard to add too much on the West Coast.

  
  

• Add microbes to colonize organic matter and act as a catalyst for decomposition. Mix 180ml into a 15L backpack sprayer with a dollop of blackstrap molasses