In today’s Almond Matters, brought to you by Valent, healthy soils go a long way in ensuring healthy trees. Soil profiles play a crucial role in how trees perform. Maintaining proper nutrition keeps trees from running out of energy and keeps them producing at high levels. Meeting the needs of almond trees starts with making sure soils have the proper nutritional value.
“Typically, in almonds, we put down Fall fertilizer in anticipation of Fall-Winter rains to get that process going, to get those major nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium – into the rootzone,” said Field Market Development Specialist for Valent USA, Todd Burkdoll. “I’m a firm believer that if the soil is strong with nutrition that you can have a better response from the trees overall. Trees are able to mine the soil more effectively and to take up that nutrition as they need it.”
Fully understanding the types of soils that the trees are growing in is a critical aspect for ensuring they receive the proper nutrients. Keeping up with soil health and nutrition will create a better chance for a successful harvest. “There’s a lot of activity that’s happening below the ground microbially, how healthy a soil is. The trees a reflection of that, basically that’s your tell-tale if the soil is healthy the trees will be healthy,” Burkdoll noted.
Ensuring strong and healthy trees ultimately begins with planting. As Burkdoll points out, microbial activity in the soil can dictate how the trees mine the soil for nutrients. There are methods that can help set trees up for better success when first being planted.
“What we promote is to inoculate the roots with mycorrhizal fungi, MycoApply is the product, it’s a complex of four different mycorrhizal fungi that have shown to be beneficial to getting a good start,” Burkdoll noted. “It’s four of the most effective fungi as far as forming that symbiotic relationship and creating that extra mycelial mining of the soil. It mines the soil more effectively for water and nutrition.”
Listen to the report below.