Don’t let the roots of your fruit trees dry out between lifting from the nursery and planting.
Planting may often be delayed because of adverse weather conditions or other reasons, and the trees have to be coolstored or heeled in.
Preventing trees drying out during storage is a tricky business: too dry and they dehydrate; too wet and they may become infected by Phytophthora or other root rots.
Problems with tight bundles of trees
Tightly bundled trees are difficult to maintain at uniform wetness because the roots of trees in the middle of a bundle often do not have good contact with the soil or the damp sawdust that they are placed into.
Where trees have been held for a while, it is good practice to soak their roots in water for 24 to 48 hours before planting, to rehydrate them.
Possible dehydration after planting
Planting into dry soil, or failing to firm the soil around the roots, can lead to dehydration after planting. If the soil is dry or crumbly, the trees need to be watered in.
Dehydration problems that occur either before or after planting usually show up as delayed bud break in the spring, or bud break with little or no shoot extension growth.
The affected trees are often found grouped along the row. If they occur in groups of ten trees it means a particular bundle dried out. If in groups of say four to six trees, then it was the ones in the middle of the bundle that dried out.
Don’t plant late
Plant trees at least four weeks before anticipated bud break if you want to minimise establishment problems and get the trees away to a good start.
Planting trees at least four weeks before anticipated bud break allows their roots to grow before the stress of bud break. When buds break the trees can then make a full season’s growth.
See this article in Tree Fruit June 2019
