Dear CSA Members,
This week, the first week of February, we will plant trees, just under 1600 of them. These are all replants; replacement trees needed for several reasons.
1. Old age. 760 peach trees are replacements for the 2 blocks of old trees, planted 30 years ago in 1985 that we removed last Fall.
2. Gopher Damage. There are 300 Cherry tree replants. Gophers love them!
3. Sunburn Damage. 200+ trees were so severely sunburned they needed to be pulled out. Peaches and Nectarines seem to be especially susceptible to this never ending problem. The bark burns, then cracks, leaving the trees’ skin open to invasion from boring insects such as the flat headed borer. This worm eats the cambium layer just below the bark, eventually girdling the branch, thus killing it.
4. Fire blight. The dreaded scourge of every apple and pear grower in North America. Pears are the most susceptible. Last Spring, 2014, was probably the worst Fire blight year in history for California pear growers. Here at Frog Hollow, it took out 700 trees, mostly our Golden Russet Bosc, but also a good many Taylor’s Gold as well. Thankfully, the Warren Pear is “untouchable”, being totally resistant to Fire blight.
We were only able to get about 300 pear trees from our nursery. Hopefully, the additional 400 trees will be available to plant next year. The planting begins Monday. We’ve done our ground preparation already, with each replant spot getting about 15 lbs of compost last Fall. This year’s replants will be our first major test of our hypothesis that the replant syndrome is a ‘biological’ problem, not a mineral one. Our biological approach will be a combination of compost, vermicompost, humus, and compost tea laced with mycorrhizae. A wizard’s brew of fungi, bacteria and protozoa! Stay tuned for the results; we should know if it’s working by mid-summer.
