Swales and Fruit Trees

Hello all,

This is my first post on Permies. We have about 5 acres of land in upstate New York right outside of Albany. There is an east facing slope with a roughly 20 to 25% grade.

Last year I was able to put a couple of fruit trees on contour across the hillside, but did not build a wail. This year I have an intention of planting around 20 to 25 fruit trees in approximately 3 to 4 rows down the hillside.

I have two questions. One. Although I did my order wrong, I’d like to still build the wails for the pre-existing fruit trees. I understand that the ace of the tree would be buried below the berm so I’m assuming I can either try to lift up the tree to the top of the berm or just have the bottom base of the tree buried in the topsoil.

More pressing, though, I am planting a mix of semi dwarf, fruit varieties of which they all have different canopy shapes. It would be a mix of apples, pears, cherries, plums, and nectarine. The spacing that I’ve read is that 15 feet on center (or ~4.5 m) and 20 feet between the rows (~6 m) is a safe bet for a majority of the semi dwarf varieties.


Since I’ll be digging about 600 feet of wail by hands, I’d like to start now so that I can plant in dormancy before the hard winter.

I’d like to know what your recommendations are seeing as the contour lines already have variable widths from row to row so do I map out the wails to the distance apart of the trees or do I map the wails out to the proper distance of wails based on the slope and the upper canopy layer of the tree traced back to the landscape?

The material overhead is very variable essentially says it depends on the type of soil (heavy clay) and the slope (25%) and the height of the mature tree (20 ft max).

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

We make our swales after we plant the trees.

Maybe the reason for doing it first before planting trees is that earth moving equipment is being used.

Zach Lynn wrote:Hello all,

This is my first post on Permies. We have about 5 acres of land in upstate New York right outside of Albany. There is an east facing slope with a roughly 20 to 25% grade.

Last year I was able to put a couple of fruit trees on contour across the hillside, but did not build a wail. This year I have an intention of planting around 20 to 25 fruit trees in approximately 3 to 4 rows down the hillside.

I have two questions. One. Although I did my order wrong, I’d like to still build the wails for the pre-existing fruit trees. I understand that the ace of the tree would be buried below the berm so I’m assuming I can either try to lift up the tree to the top of the berm or just have the bottom base of the tree buried in the topsoil.

More pressing, though, I am planting a mix of semi dwarf, fruit varieties of which they all have different canopy shapes. It would be a mix of apples, pears, cherries, plums, and nectarine. The spacing that I’ve read is that 15 feet on center (or ~4.5 m) and 20 feet between the rows (~6 m) is a safe bet for a majority of the semi dwarf varieties.


Since I’ll be digging about 600 feet of wail by hands, I’d like to start now so that I can plant in dormancy before the hard winter.

I’d like to know what your recommendations are seeing as the contour lines already have variable widths from row to row so do I map out the wails to the distance apart of the trees or do I map the wails out to the proper distance of wails based on the slope and the upper canopy layer of the tree traced back to the landscape?

The material overhead is very variable essentially says it depends on the type of soil (heavy clay) and the slope (25%) and the height of the mature tree (20 ft max).

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

You should be able to uproot and replant last years trees into the swale you intend to build without too much disturbance to them if you do it in dormancy. Although I realize that may be in the dead of winter when the ground is frozen. We  don't have to deal with that out here.

As for spacing, it's hard to say without seeing your slope. My brain doesn't compute what a 20-25% grade is. I think in naturalist terms not engineering terms. For your region, I would think strict adherence to contour for swales might not be so important. You get summer rain correct? (what a luxury lol). If the spacing of the swales gets too close you could just start a new swale, or put each individual tree on it's own mini swale. There's a term for that but I'm forgetting. 20 ft distance seems wide for semi-dwarf trees. Probably accounting for having some row in the middle with which to work, so just take that into account for how much space you want to have to work between the rows. Remember, the plants don't really care about those specifications- those are for our convenience.

Another Upstater! I'm right over near the Battenkil myself.

Twenty five degrees slope is erring towards the maximum I would consider due to the potential for instability/erosion. My risk tolerance is low when it comes to my site and its erosion potential so I err towards fifteen.

I would base my swales via the slope, the trees are then utilized to hold that ground together after. I would not bury the trunk of the fruit trees though in soil because this can lead to rot/early decline. If the trees are grafted I would want to leave the exposed by at least two to three inches to fight off unintentional scion rooting.

Have you considered the use of fruiting shrubs as well to help keep the ground held together?

I appreciate the feedback. I’ll have to thoroughly measure the slope to determine what exact percentage of it. It is. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s probably closer to 15 to 18%, which is a pretty gentle downhill until you get to the lower part of the hill where it kind of drops off.

15 feet was recommended for semi dwarf spacing across many different types of fruit trees. We have a lot of apple Grovers in our area so I’m not too interested in growing apples but more interested in cherries, plums, nectarines, hearty, peaches, and persimmons. I guess I don’t need to plan out the fruit tree spacing yet right now. The most important thing is the distance apart for the swales which I wanted to space at least 15 feet apart so I can move a chicken tractor through in an ideal world. But I also know people can do it in much less space. We have quite a bit of space to take up and I plan to start pretty small on this.

Although I don’t want to dig up the trees, I will if I have to, but I can also keep the trees where they are and move the whale further uphill so that the berm doesn’t cover any of the trunk.

I am using a great deal of willpower to not just start digging with a pickax as I wanna get this right. I’ve tried to find more resources on soil distances but all I find are very wide ranges from 3 to 20 m.

The Hillside is currently shaded by a very old maple tree, which will provide some protection for the first couple years of the fruit trees life. But this year the summer was really dry and some better water retention on the hillside is definitely needed. Your thoughts and suggestions are continually appreciated.

Welcome to permies, Zach!

First, here's a good reminder regarding percent grade (slope).  Recall that a 100% grade is a 45° angle.  A 15% grade would be rising (or dropping) 15 feet over the course of 100 feet of run.  A 15% grade is less than 9°.


(Source)

If you need to know your slope:

Google Earth can get you a good number over a large area.  

There are likely phone apps you could use

You can estimate it by hand, knowing your height of eye along with a tape measurer, and perhaps a spirit level or a transit and some string.

You mention needing more water retention.  Hmmm...are there signs of erosion or runoff happening?  

If you'd like to nerd out a little bit, you can do a search for runoff coefficients to estimate how much runoff you have leaving the land.  A lower runoff coefficient means that more water is soaking in, yay!  You may find that your soil is soaking in a bunch already, and a swale may not spread the water much.  In any case...

I personally would let the trees stay where they are, undisturbed.  

They've been seeking out water since you planted them, and drier conditions will make them search deeper.  Recall that mulch and organic matter can greatly increase water retention, so time-wise, collecting organic matter might pay off more than digging by hand due to added benefits.   If soil is compacted, a broadfork could help, too.  To save time, you could also do some micro-earthworks like "fish scale swales" or "boomerang berms".

Best wishes!