Today has not been a spectacular day, but actually also quite a milestone.
If you have followed this blog you might have come across the frustration of compost. Back in 2013 fungal disease hit the Siberian plants. Many suffered branch dieback losing single or multiple branches. Advice at the time was anything from prune the branches off to cut the plants down. Some I pruned all the branches back to the main stem; some I cut to the ground. Those with the latter treatment died. The pruned back plants have recovered, but as young plants they have lost time and energy when they should have been establishing themselves.
The following year I started to use green waste compost. Approximately 30kg around each plant, together with monthly sprayings of compost tea.
The combination cured all signs of the fungal disease. The problem was that without a tractor the compost was put out from a single axle trailer pulled behind my trusty Peugeot car. The process was slow – so slow that there was not enough time to get all the plants composted.
This year I borrowed a larger trailer, towed by a John Deere gator. This sped up the process and allowed a 13 ton lorry load to be shovelled in a day. Unfortunately again because this started in September and October was the month of the Euroworks conference in Finland – yet again the job was not completed before ground conditions became too wet to drive on.
So what was so special about today? It might not sound exciting but I had a long phone call from Stephen Eyles, an agricultural engineer who is going to design and build a compost applicator which will be towed by an orchard tractor. The design has to take into account the need for low ground pressure; varied application rates and as plants are of different sizes; also take account of the compost bridging when in the trailer preventing free flow to the spinner that will direct the compost to the row. The conversation gave me every confidence that this spring all 5000 plants will get their required dose. Furthermore, the tractor will provide the motive power for a sprayer so that I no longer will need to apply compost tea with a backpack. The result will be timely applications and more time for plant management.
So if nothing else happens in 2015, plant health should take a giant leap forward.