Winter Care of Citrus and Orchard Meadows

Soon the citrus harvest will be over with just a few fruit left hanging on the trees SO....... it's time to get busy - that's if you want a bumper crop next year.  Time to sharpen the loppers, buy some trace elements, bales of mulch and get out there.

It is time to PRUNE, FEED and MULCH those hungry citrus trees - and it doesn't matter whether they are in pots or in the ground - this advice applies to ALL CITRUS.

PRUNING
I recently went to help a friend of mine prune her old, but prolific, citrus trees and she reckons we are in for a wet winter so it's time to get those outdoor jobs while we can.

BEFORE

1. Branches hanging on the ground.
2. Crossing branches in the middle which rub together and then can be a site for pest and disease attack.
3.Tree getting too tall to be able to reach fruit.
4. Dry, cracked and bare ground under the tree.

AFTER
1.  Taking out some the large inner branches, as well as lifting the skirt off the ground, allows for better airflow through your citrus and helps to deter diseases.
2.  My retired farming friend, who used to be a commercial citrus grower, says not to be too timid when pruning and was just about to take to this tree with a pair of shears "just to give it a final haircut".  Her tip - don't let your trees get too tall so that you can't reach the fruit.


FACT: Pruning actually encourages more growth and flowering - and that means more fruit.


TOP TIP:  Gardeners are often reluctant to prune while there is still some fruit on the tree, immature or otherwise - but you have to do it sometime!  If you leave it until late in the winter you will be cutting off the developing flowering buds.  Here are a couple of ways I use up that excess fruit.
1.  Juice the fruit and make frozen ice cubes which you can store in the freezer until you need them.
2.  Make preserved lemons and limes, which will keep for ages, by salting them.  Here's how: 
*Cut the washed fruit into quarters and stuff into sterilised jars - salt the bottom first.
*With every layer of fruit add some salt.
*Top up with squeezed fresh juice.
*Weight down with a stone that you have cleaned with boiling water so that all the fruit is under the liquid.
*100g salt per 500ml jar.
* I add bay leaves to the lemons - you can add cloves and cinnamon.
* Ready to use in a month or so.  Wash the preserved fruit and discard the fruit pulp and white pith - you just want the skin - slice thinly

HOW TO USE:  Preserved Limes - with fish and seafood.  Lemons - Couscous, Middle Eastern dishes, tagines.  Try this delicious lamb tagine dish - it needs 2 preserved lemons.

The street where we used to live in Sydney copping a huge storm

FEEDING and MULCHING
1..  The whole of the east coast of Australia has just experienced a terrific storm with some folk on the North Coast, where I live,  getting over 400mm in 24 hours (annual average 1,500mm) which means, for us gardeners, that many of the nutrients in the soil get washed away (along with the assortment of shoes from the flooded front porch!).  SO - with the portent of a wet winter, it's time to care for your citrus trees - AND the best way to do that is by caring for the soil - that means FEEDING it and not leaving the soil bare, and MULCHING.

2.  Note the tree in the top photo after we had finished. No more bare earth under under the trees.  Each tree has been mulched out to the drip line - in this case with spent straw from a horse stable, but you can use anything; wood chips, composted grass clippings, spent sugar cane, lucerne - just about whatever you can lay your hands on.

3.  An organic, pelleted, slow-release fertiliser (macronutrients) is the way to go together with a dose of trace elements (micronutrients).

TOP TIP: Grow your own mulch!  Plants some clumps of COMFREY and LEMON GRASS around your orchard - these can be slashed regularly and used as a green mulch.  WHY - COMFREY has a long tap root and mines up minerals from deep in the soil, it also has a low carbon to nitrogen ratio so can be used fresh - unlike most green material - it won't rob the soil of nitrogen as it breaks down. LEMON GRASS has essential oils that act as a passive pest control when the fresh leaves are used as mulch - for its size it also produces a lot of leaves.

AND NOW - for all of those folk who have an orchard and are interested in making a smaller footprint - READ ON

From This

TOP TIPS for A HEALTHIER ORCHARD:
Making our patch more like a living organism and less like an artificial, unsustainable experiment just makes common sense to me - do yourself and the environment a favour and eliminate the need for ALL OF THE ABOVE; continual mowing, weeding, feeding and mulching.

HOW: by making your orchard, 
less work to maintain, more productive AND more beautiful.

To This

COVER CROPS provide a living carpet of perennial plants for orchards.  A 'living mulch' of low growing legumes,  grasses and other wildflowers can provide many advantages, especially compared to exotic lawn grass (kikuyu,couch and buffalo) which aggressively competes with your fruit trees for water and nutrients - and you have to mow it!  

The best way to start is with a LEGUMINOUS COVER CROP.  Legumes are plants such as lucerne, pea and bean family, medics and chickpeas.



WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA FOR ALL ORCHARDS?: How about feeding the soil with the plants that are growing there?

• Legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen from the air onto their roots which then becomes available, via the soil, to other plants.  Nitrogen is a major element needed for plant growth.
• Protects valuable topsoil from rain and wind erosion.
• Suppresses weeds without the use of herbicides.
• Improves the health of your soil by increasing organic matter, earthworms and vital microorganisms.
• Reduces compaction of the soil by frequent mowing.
• Prevents hardpans and soil cracking and brings up minerals from deep within the soil.
• Improves water, root and air penetration of the soil.
• Provides nectar and pollen for beneficial insects and reduces populations of pests by providing a more balanced, diverse and natural habitat.
• Looks wonderful - if you would rather have the buzz of insects than the sound of a mower, and the flit of butterflies and birds on the wing - then this is for you.
• Is ultimately less work and saves you money - have you seen the price of a bale of lucerne lately?

• 
  NITROGEN NODULES on the roots of broad beans

HOW TO DO IT?

1.  It's obviously much easier to do this when establishing a new orchard as you need bare earth to sow the seed in.  Seeds are available from any rural seed supplier.

2.  How to get rid of existing grass:

• There are new organically certified herbicides on the market that are based on pine oil called Weed Blitz - though I have yet to try it. (Recommended by Green Harvest Company that also sells cover crop seeds)
• Hire a steam weeder to kill the grass - being used more and more by Councils and road side authorities as alternative to harmful herbicides.
• For smaller areas - sheet mulch with cardboard and straw.

3.  Now for an important little bit of science.  The fixing of nitrogen by legumes from soil air require the presence of species specific bacteria (rhizobia) so it's important to buy seeds that have already been inoculated with the relevant rhizobia as your soil will probably be deficient in these important bacteria.

4.  Make sure you have summer (e.g. cowpeas, lab lab, soybeans, desmodium, siratro) and winter ( e.g.lupins, vetch, oats, ryegrass) growing crops as you want year round cover. 

5.  Add a grass seed to your cover crop -  including native grasses and others like oats, barley and ryegrass - has many benefits including; increasing organic matter and carbon input, encourages smaller seed eating birds and more beneficial insects. 

6.  Orchards with a lot of shade (macadamias, mangoes and avocados).  The DPI (Department of Primary Industry) recommends the native Smothergrass Dactyloctenium austral and Amarillo peanut Araelus pinto.

Cover crop seeds for sale in our local Rural Co-op

MAINTENANCE

1.  Once your new meadow is established slash as required!!!!  This may only be a couple of times a year!!!!!  Important to do it once in the late summer to encourage re-seeding.  Leave anything you have slashed to rot down.  Re-seed any bare patches - then just sit back and ENJOY IT.

Go to this link by the NSW DPI for lots of useful information.

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/119803/cover-crops-subtropical-orchards.pdf

Guess what Prince Charles gave his mother to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her coronation (no, it wasn't a corgi) - a MEADOW in every county rescued from abandoned waste ground.

http://coronationmeadows.org.uk 

  

Citrus: Pruning and Planting

Some of the most frequently asked questions that come my way are about the care of citrus - mainly about pruning and pests and diseases. 

 Regular maintenance will go a long way to controlling common problems.

PLANTING: We are at the start of citrus season and just about every variety imaginable grows in my area - but to have healthy, productive trees a few simple guidelines should be followed.

• Choose an open, sunny position, preferably north to northeast facing, with shelter from strong winds. Plant in late winter to early spring.  Chose the right variety for your area. (Check with your local specialist nursery for appropriate species.  Avoid buying from your local supermarket or hardware chain!)
• A fertile, well-drained soil with a pH between 6 - 8 is best. Citrus are vulnerable to root-rot so care must be taken to avoid badly drained areas. Checking the pH of the soil is important so it can be corrected, if necessary, before planting. (see UNDERSTANDING SOILS PAGE)

FEEDING: If you feed your citrus regularly they will be healthier, more resistant to pest and disease attack and bear more fruit.

• Citrus trees are very hungry feeders with high requirements. A regular foliar spray (liquid fertiliser applied directly to the leaves) with a seaweed based fertiliser will go a long way to providing the essential macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium + trace elements. SEE Making Your Own COMPOST TEA.
• Citrus will also benefit from a tri-annual complete soil fertiliser in September, early December and March - after the rainy season; always water the tree well after fertilising. Never place non liquid fertiliser close to the trunk or in heaps, spread it as evenly as possible to just past the drip-line of the tree. Compost or animal manures are ideal.  For details on when and what to feed citrus go to this link and how to recognise deficiencies.

My lemonade tree after feeding it for a year - it's worth it!

WATERING: Citrus are thirsty plants.

• If you neglect to water them during dry periods the fruit will also be dry. 
• Continual water stress leaves the tree weakened and less productive.
• Citrus need regular watering from flower bud formation through to fruit set to retain a good crop. Water stress is usually the cause of fruit drop.  Mulching will alleviate this.

MULCHING: Do not plant citrus (or any tree) in the middle of a lawn without having a grass-free mulched area out to the edge of the canopy.

• Grass and weeds compete with your tree for water and nutrients - if left to grow  under the tree they also encourage collar rot of the citrus trunk 
• Grass around trees also equals the dreaded whipper-snipper!  I have seen more young trees damaged and ring-barked by thoughtless 'whipping' than I have had hot dinners!
• Wet newspaper, at least 10 sheets thick, can be used to kill weeds and grass under the tree and then topped with mulch regularly to prevent weeds returning. 
• Always mulch past the drip-line of the tree as this is the area where most of the feeder roots are found.

TOP TIP:  A lot of folk have problems with brush turkeys and say that they are reluctant to mulch under trees for this reason - the critters just dig it up.  A way to overcome this is by planting a green manure crop in the mulch (they put back into the soil as well as anchoring the mulch) with something like nasturtium - non-invasive, hardy and very pretty.

Before pruning and mulching - note dry, cracked soil under tree and branches dragging on ground.

After. Branches pruned away from ground and mulched out to drip line.  This is the ideal height to keep a citrus tree.

PRUNING: Start to shape your trees from DAY ONE. It is very hard to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear - i.e. it is very hard to turn a ten year old unpruned, unloved tree into something beautiful, healthy and productive (a bit like people really!)

• Prune in June or July before the spring bud burst in frost-free areas. In frost affected areas delay pruning until after the last frost. 
• Remove dead or damaged branches, branches growing inwards and very low branches to improve air circulation. LIFT THE SKIRT. After pruning, the lower edge of the canopy should be 60 - 90 cm clear of the ground.
• Shape the tree after harvest in early spring.

Citrus graft

A NOTE ABOUT CITRUS GRAFTING:  All citrus that you buy have been grafted.  This means that two different species of citrus have been 'cleft' together to make one plant.  Generally the 'rootstock' is Citrus trifoliate  (meaning-three-leaves) and is used because it is resistant to a soil born disease called phytophtera which, in the past just about wiped out the world-wide citrus industry.  The 'scion' or main plant on the top is the desirable species be it Seville orange, Eureka lemon, Tahitian lime etc.




If you look carefully at a citrus plant you can always see where it has been grafted - it's where the 'dog-leg' is!

Shoots that came from below graft

The photo on the left shows unwanted shoots of trifoliate which grew below the graft of my lemon tree- TAKE THEM OFF!  Most citrus will throw out a few of these unwanted shoots. A regular part of pruning maintenance is to remove shoots of trifoliata from below the graft as soon as possible, as they steal vigour from the tree and, if left too long, leave large wounds for disease to enter when they are cut.
They are viciously thorny so be wary handling them!










Aim to have mature trees no more than 2.5 to 3 m high. Higher than this just creates problems with harvesting and pest control. Larger trees are not more productive than smaller, well-managed trees. Once you have taken all unwanted branches you do not have to be too fussy about trimming the outer growth - most citrus growers just take a pair of shears to their trees!

A NOTE ABOUT WASP GALL DAMAGE:  You may notice these swollen lumps on citrus branches - make sure you prune these and destroy them.  This is the damage that the burrowing wasp gall makes - if left, they will weaken the tree and eventually destroy it.

Damage from citrus wasp gall.  Prune out of tree to prevent re-infection

NOTE:  By following these few simple guidelines a lot of the common problems citrus growers have will not occur - i.e better fruiting and less pests and diseases.