How close is too close for a nurse tree?

This spring I will be starting my third year of food forestry and I have some questions about nurse trees and nuts. What is the correct distance to plant a nurse tree? I am starting with both trees in the 1 foot to 2 feet in height. If I plant the nurse tree 10 feet away from the tree it is supposed to be nursing won't the hazel nut be mature before the nurse tree interacts with it? At the moment I am planting autumn olive about 3' away on one side and  buffalo berry about 5 feet away on the other side. My thought is that when the start to crowd each other I will sequentially copice the nurse trees and use the branches for propagation. I also have lovage, comfrey, egyptian walking onions, dutch clover, and good king henry planted into the guilds. Are there any recommendations or additions I should be making to these guilds? Am i even on the right track?

Bryan Johnson wrote:This spring I will be starting my third year of food forestry and I have some questions about nurse trees and nuts. What is the correct distance to plant a nurse tree? I am starting with both trees in the 1 foot to 2 feet in height. If I plant the nurse tree 10 feet away from the tree it is supposed to be nursing won't the hazel nut be mature before the nurse tree interacts with it? At the moment I am planting autumn olive about 3' away on one side and  buffalo berry about 5 feet away on the other side. My thought is that when the start to crowd each other I will sequentially copice the nurse trees and use the branches for propagation. I also have lovage, comfrey, egyptian walking onions, dutch clover, and good king henry planted into the guilds. Are there any recommendations or additions I should be making to these guilds? Am i even on the right track?

I suspect you're going to receive a wide variance on your answers here.

Before I chime in with my response, what do you mean by a "nurse tree?"

Perhaps there's another term for the objective you're trying to accomplish...

...what is it that you're trying to do with your plants?

Rob Kaiser wrote:

Bryan Johnson wrote:This spring I will be starting my third year of food forestry and I have some questions about nurse trees and nuts. What is the correct distance to plant a nurse tree? I am starting with both trees in the 1 foot to 2 feet in height. If I plant the nurse tree 10 feet away from the tree it is supposed to be nursing won't the hazel nut be mature before the nurse tree interacts with it? At the moment I am planting autumn olive about 3' away on one side and  buffalo berry about 5 feet away on the other side. My thought is that when the start to crowd each other I will sequentially copice the nurse trees and use the branches for propagation. I also have lovage, comfrey, egyptian walking onions, dutch clover, and good king henry planted into the guilds. Are there any recommendations or additions I should be making to these guilds? Am i even on the right track?

I suspect you're going to receive a wide variance on your answers here.

Before I chime in with my response, what do you mean by a "nurse tree?"

Perhaps there's another term for the objective you're trying to accomplish...

...what is it that you're trying to do with your plants?

By "nurse tree" I mean a nitrogen fixing tree that is planted near a sapling of a higher value tree to feed it nitrogen to help it grow. I am trying to provide a perennial nitrogen source for my nut trees while they are young. Once the nut trees are properly established the nurse trees may be copiced and replaced with a proper guild. In the meanwhile, how close should I be planting my nitrogen fixers to help get the sapling nut trees going?

I'm reading through Gaia's Garden, and Toby Hemenworth advocates planting "two trees in the same hole". Then, for the first 5 years, you keep the nitrogen fixer cut back to half the size of the other tree. After 5 years, you can phase the nurse tree out.

I haven't tried this yet, but I'm going to. I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried this to see what kind of results you had, what specific  plants were used, and what kind of climate you're in.

Thanks Trish Doherty! I think that's what I need to know. I'm thinking that this summer I will try a nitrogen fixing shrub such as false indigo or indigo bush very close as the first nurse tree. Their natural life cycle should work pretty well for the time span that I need a nurse tree. I will then plant the nitrogen fixing trees further out from the nut trees winding up at russian olive at the adult drip line. Or so the theory goes today. LOL Anyway, thanks for the help. I'm in zone 3 on the Canadian prairies.