Fertilizer for young apple trees

This will be the second spring for my young semi-dwarf apple and cherry trees. Do I need to fertilize and if so with what?

I too need the answer to this question, can't beleive no one has answered anything yet.

Lavina

nick do a search in the above, put in the word fertilize there is an answer there to our question. Or at least some things we can try.

Lavina

I was at a workshop last week at an apple farm, and the farmer said he almost never fertilizes his apple trees and generally doesn't recommend it. He said it tended to result in more vegetative growth instead of fruit.


Me, I use Jobe's fruit tree spikes on my older trees, but on the young ones - the first & second year, I use rose spikes, that are smaller. I dont' trust all that concentrated fertilizer with such a small tree.

I use a minimal amount of organic 6-6-6 fertilizer on my apples plus compost. I don't think using any synthetic fertilizer is ever warranted, unless the soil is particularly bad.

Scott

My soil is particularly bad, unfortunately. Nasty clay.

And with very young trees, I do want growth.

i work in compost in a circle to the outermost level of lateral branches and water it well. I also use white clover as a ground cover. It's a great nitrogen fixer, attracts bees and is low to no maintenance, other that occasionally moving it. It smothers out weeds which means your tree is getting max on nutrients.

Hear hear on the compost and clover. I put a wheel barrow of manure underneath each of my fruit trees in the spring, then I cover the manure with leaves and/or pine needles in the fall, building up some mulch which is always decomposing. The mulch keeps the weeds down and the soil moist.
I have a box of clover seed I plan to plant around the outside edges, as well. One of our county agents experimented with planting clover along the outside edges of the trees -- near the drip line and found they needed no further nitrogen than that generated by the clover.

It would be a good idea to test the soil and see if it is deficient in the other major nutrients, K and P.

On soil nutrients for fruit trees:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-Soil-Nutrients&id=216966

Thanks for the article. I will enjoy it as well. I add manure because our soil is nitrogen poor and poor in organic matter, but, come to think of it, it is also poor in phosphorus. What we have lots of is minerals and potassium.
I suppose there is someone in this world who has soil with a lot of nitrogen in it? Lucky person.

Overly nitrogen-rich soil is not good for fruit trees. See the following PSU link for a more complete description of nutrient needs for fruit trees.

http://tfpg.cas.psu.edu/33.htm

Scott