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You could be right! I say just let the weeds grow all over your fruit trees thats a surefire way to keep all pest and disease away from your tress
I have heard that mulch can be bad for fruit trees in at least two instances: 1) mulch in contact with trunk and causes truck to rot, and 2) if soil is saturated with nitrogen, the additional nitrogen added by mulch can be unhealthy for fruit trees. Thoughts?
The same trees that don't like wet feet are the ones you have to careful with heavily mulchingFrom my not too diverse experience one tree to be real careful with is avocado due to it being prone to root rot.
in my experience with lawn guys weeds = weed wacker = tree damage
Quote from: natsgarden123 on June 17, 2014, 10:17:42 AMin my experience with lawn guys weeds = weed wacker = tree damageweeds = weed wacker or Round-up = tree damage
Mulch is a necessity to get the full potential out of your trees. The mulch REMOVES nitrogen, aerates the soil, helps control weeds, provides humus that supports the soils living systems, and protects from harmful funguses when properly applied. It is time consuming though, and that may make it something that would make one hope that it is harmful.. Unfortunately, and once again..... No pain, no gain..
Pretty well all trees like heavy mulch regularly applied even avocadoes in high rainfall tropical areas on clay during the rainy season. Citrus can take it or leave it but still benefit on balance. Pure lawn clippings that form a mat, mulch against or close to the trunk and wood chips are sub optimal and can causes hassles. Suddenly burying surface roots with mulch that stays wet or has poor aeration can also cause problems. Too much wood in the mulch, especially wood chips and not enough greens does mean a temporary hoovering of soil N. If it is broken down a bit or has plenty of foliage or grass in there. The 4:1 ratio is good to keep in mind.One other benefit of mulch is that the breakdown products, resulting fungi and other decomposers reduce phytophthora.
Quote from: Mike T on June 17, 2014, 09:31:13 AMPretty well all trees like heavy mulch regularly applied even avocadoes in high rainfall tropical areas on clay during the rainy season. Citrus can take it or leave it but still benefit on balance. Pure lawn clippings that form a mat, mulch against or close to the trunk and wood chips are sub optimal and can causes hassles. Suddenly burying surface roots with mulch that stays wet or has poor aeration can also cause problems. Too much wood in the mulch, especially wood chips and not enough greens does mean a temporary hoovering of soil N. If it is broken down a bit or has plenty of foliage or grass in there. The 4:1 ratio is good to keep in mind.One other benefit of mulch is that the breakdown products, resulting fungi and other decomposers reduce phytophthora. I think Mango is another take it or leave it? I have heard they don't need or require much mulch.
Also lawngrass weed and feed sees your tree as another weed with its atrazine
Tree mulch is very high in Carbon. The high carbon level counters the release of nitrogen and may even remove additional nitrogen from rainwater percolating through it.http://www.icrisat.org/what-we-do/learning-opportunities/lsu-pdfs/Carbon%20Nitrogen%20Ratio%20in%20the%20Soil.pdf(Explains Carbon/Nitrogen relationship)"Another drawback is that organic mulches cause a temporary boom in the population of soil microorganisms, which can tie up some soil nutrients. This boom is especially a problem with mulches high in carbon, such as wood chips." (cited from http://main.org/aog/articles/mulc.htm)Eventually if the carbon is used up the subsequent nutrients are released, but the nitrogen that was utilized by the decomposition process is gone!
The primary reason that topsoil contains more nutrients than subsoil is that it has had long term exposure to rotting organic matter. Mulch, or organic litter, is the main way that nature creates topsoil. If there is concern about temporary nitrogen loss, mulching can be done with compost. My favorite soil nutrition course on the internet:The Agricultural Bureau of South Australia's 'Better Soils' pages:http://soilwater.com.au/bettersoils/modules.htm