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Input/colaboration wanted for organic naval orange & peach orchard nitrogen fixing and management

 
Posts: 11
Location: Clermont, Florida
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Can anyone chime in or physically help with this project?  

I have 5 acres of Naval Oranges, 5 acres of peaches and 3 acres of baby Macadamia trees.  I have not used any chemicals or fertilizers for over 18 months.  This year I purchased a John Deere 5067 tractor and a great no till seeder.  I want to plant some cover crops like sun hemp or sorghum Sudan or a mix and maybe an inoculant to fix nitrogen in the trees.  My naval oranges actually look really nice the old farmer said he spread 140 pounds of synthetic fertilizer on the orange trees and thats why they look so good.  They have greening.  What's weird is these synthetic fertilizers just give a short burst of nitrogen and I think with the right mix of cover crops and innoculants we could run a great test to see if the slow release of the nitrogen helps heal the trees.  I also want to plant some pine trees and oaks and various diversity in the rows where some of the dead trees are.

I bought a cool Italian flail mower that gets under the trees real good so I have not used any glyphosate or anything to kill the grass under the trees I let it grow wild for 1 year and just chopped up all that natural biomass so there's a good over over the soil now.

I included a BEFORE photo of the soil when I bought the grove 18 months ago really sandy soil with lots of glyphosate.

Anyways I am looking for anyone local that wants to chime in and maybe see it evolve and run a cool test on them with me.  I am new to this but love learning and trying things.

I noticed (maybe I overlooked something) that the UF and citrus labs never really study the natural methods effectiveness on healing citrus greening.  And I am willing to sacrifice my trees for a cool organic test.  Hopefully it works but it would be cool to have multiple inputs on what to do.  

Hope to hear from you.
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Posts: 36
Location: los angeles
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cool project.  hopefully i will be in the area sometime this year, would love to lend a hand.  i'm actually looking to purchase 10 acres in central florida to try naturally growing my favorite fruit trees and epiphytes.  lots of my inspiration comes from florida natural farming (fnf) on youtube.  he's in vero beach so his climate is better than around the orlando area but the same principles apply, probably.  

1. no irrigation, he never waters any of his plants
2. regularly applies manure/compost from his miniature zebus to his favorite fruit trees
3. tries to maximize plant diversity
4. removes all the potting soil before planting
5. directly plants a lot of seeds
6. strongly advises against compaction
7. strongly advises against the use of plastics

one of the most important concepts is that plants trade their surplus resources with each other via fungi.  when you maximize diversity, you maximize resource availability, which maximizes productivity.  

not sure if you've heard of the miyawaki forest method but one of its main tenets is to place the plants and trees relatively close to each other.  their logic is that the increased competition for light will speed up growth.  however, since the plants and trees are close to each other, this makes it easier for them to exchange resources, which is actually what facilitates their growth.  another one of the main tenets of miyawaki method is diversity, but they don't condone the use of non-natives.  only using natives goes against their main tenet of diversity, and is very counter-productive.  each country in the world has people who are really good at singing, for example.  but chances are slim that any country has the best singers in the world.  the same is true for plants and water collection/storage.  the same is also true for plants and nitrogen fixation.  florida or even the us has the best nitrogen fixers in the world?  doubtful.  

ideally there should be a list of plants that are the best at supplying any given resource in any given climate.  like, are bananas the best at supplying potassium in florida?  i dunno.  fnf sure plants a lot of them.  in a recent video he made the observation that the mangoes growing right next to bananas handled the cold better.  i sure wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, but correlation doesn't mean causation.  fnf did, i think, cite a study drawing a connection between potassium and increased tolerance to environmental stressors.  

last month i started following kevin cruz on youtube.  not exactly sure where he's located in florida but i think he's more central.  he recently opened an online store to sell some useful plants and seeds.  

let me know if you have any questions.  i look forward to seeing your progress.  
 
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