Effects of Soil Management, Irrigation and Fertigation in an Ip Apple Orchard on Soil Nitrate Content and on Tree Mineral Nutrition

Comparison of white clover and mixed sodgrass as orchard floor vegetation

“…Current apple production systems involve much higher densities of trees on dwarfing rootstocks. However, interest has been further provoked by recent studies indicating that large amounts of N are potentially available to fruit trees from a grass-legume understorey (Goh and Ridgen 1997), and that higher and adequate soil N was measured in orchard soil beneath white clover relative to various grasses (Hornig and Bünemann 1995). Such an orchard system provides a possible method of reducing N fertilization rates in orchards and mitigating the ecological consequences of excessive N-fertilizer applications (Weinbaum et al 1992).…”