Orchard tending must be suited to the season and tree growth stage for sustainable fruit production in quantity, quality, and regularity.
With weeding, irrigation, and pruning, fertilisation is one of the four types of orchard management practices to guarantee good tree growth and orchard longevity.
Keeping reading to see what kind of fertilisation the Azienda Agricola Salvatore Di Marco keeps on choosing in 2020.
Feeding the soil is crucial to maintain and increase the fertility. We do this primarily by keeping fruit crop diversity (orange, citrus, olive, prickly pear, figs, almonds, pears..) in our orchard, while reducing tillage, maintaining wild green manure around the trees, and keeping fruit trees together with wild vegetables (senapa, wild fennel, wild chard, tenerumi), herbs, flowers and grass.
However, in situations of heavy nutrient depletion or unfavourable growing conditions, it may be necessary to supply nutrients from outside the farm to build up soil fertility and produce reasonable harvests. In such conditions, our actual practice of fertility management is to use an organic mineral fertilizer containing a balanced composition of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK 7-5-5), rich in organic carbon (20%) and micro-organisms as well. Suitable for use with both conventional agricultural techniques and organic farming, such fertilizer’s overall organic content is 89%, consisting of cattle manure and protein powders.
