Hi again - question two /
thread two on
apple orchard planning.
Brief background - planting smallish orchard (0.25 acres, primarily cider apples) in the spring. Hudson Valley zone 5b. Site is flat, 10
acre diverse pasture, hayed by
local farms for decades. Soil is a very nice dark loam for 18 inches and then a gravelly loam underneath. Very well drained. Soil very deficient in phosphorus and potassium - likely from decades of haying...
Reading through many forums and Michael Phillips'
books on
organic orcharding (which are a great read), consensus advice seems to be cover cropping the site for a few seasons to reduce weed pressure and build soil, plant
trees, then planting a diverse pasture mix.
If you start out with a diverse pasture environment (grasses, legumes, flowers, etc) why go through the trouble and soil damage of repeated tilling, cover cropping and re-establishing the pasture? If soil organic content is an issue, why not simply mow and allow cuttings to rot in situ for a few summers, or just allow pasture to lie fallow?
FWIW (and would welcome constructive criticism) What I've done / plan to do is: break sod, deeply dig and amend 10 ft 2 stations for each tree; deeply
mulch each station for a season prior to planting [this part is already done]; plant trees; deeply mulch around trees at planting; sheet mulch over time concentrically enlarging areas around each tree to smother sod; plant daikon or similar annual into newly sheet mulched area for a season to break up compaction and deposit organics in the subsoil; follow daikon by
perennial guilds of accumulators, nitrogen fixers, insectary plants, etc. Will scythe down the aisles (existing grass and legume pasture) to mulch trees along with leaf mold and any ramial
wood chips i can get my hands on. I'm hoping with this gradual multi-year sheet mulch strategy I can stay ahead of the growth of the trees while not trying to do too much all at once. Will allow time to grow out all the support plants in home nursery. Will allow sheet mulching / chop and drop to de-compact and build the soil ahead of
root growth, will allow a diverse guild to be in place by the time the trees come into bearing... Understory between trees in rows will gradually merge with all the support species; aisles will remain diverse pasture mix.
Does this sound like a good plan?