MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

 - I help growers who grow apples, cherries, peaches, and pears primarily. And so here in the west central part of the state, it's been really interesting just to get to know the industry. And I'm very pleased to be part of Michigan State. So let's start digging in and talking about preparing your site for fruit. So just in general, there are a lot of reasons to grow fruit. My favorite reason is that there's nothing like getting a fresh picked peach or raspberry right off the plant. And so that it's just hard to be that fresh taste. There are a lot of varieties to choose from and it's a fun challenge. You can do a lot of things in your yard or at a larger scale. And then for folks who are interested in using fresh fruit for homemade goods or preserved foods, there are a lot of options to choose from. There for what you enjoy. But there are some of important things to consider. Some of the ones that we'll talk about today is where to plant your fruit crops. Other things to think about are what to plant. And then these crops, because they're in perennial systems, there can be some time and equipment investment. So those are things to think about. What pest and disease might you face in Michigan. And these are long term commitments which is the fun part about a perennial plant. And so these are all things to consider and more on some of these topics will be coming as Mike mentioned in the next few weeks. So the first thing you wanna decide is what to grow. So there are a lot of wonderful of fruit crops that can be grown here in Michigan, apples, blueberries, peaches, cherries, pears, strawberry, raspberries and others. So there are quite a few options for what we can grow here in Michigan. So the first thing that I wanted to talk about and this is really key is site selection. And because we are further north, we need to be considering what our land is looking like. And this is very, very important. You wanna start with a good foundation. That's one of the things that we talk about. Starting with this good foundation. If you have fruit and a bad site, it doesn't matter what you put there, it's gonna be a struggle to grow. So this is a picture of some rolling hills and these are fruit trees. This is actually in Pennsylvania, but it shows the contour of the land. And so you wanna think about the land that you're using and what kind of temperatures you're seeing there. Whether it's high temperatures during the summertime, but especially for our Northern regions, we talk a lot about cold temperature. So stone fruit, like peaches and cherries, particularly peaches and apricots. And then some of the berry crops can be very susceptible to cold temperatures. So if you look at winter lows and an average, you're seeing minus 20 minus 25 or below, that's gonna be a cold site. And so that may not be suitable for fruit production. Tree fruits such as cherries and plums, tend to be a little bit more cold hearty than some other crops like peaches and apricots that I mentioned. Apples and pears can be more tolerant to cold temperatures, so they can withstand temperatures as low as minus 35. Hopefully we don't see that too often here in Michigan. And some of the berry crops as I mentioned earlier, you were looking more on that minus 20 to minus 25 range. So, it's really important to just of the weather patterns for your area and see what kind of cold temperatures you're experiencing. So this is important for just the life of the plant and the health of the plant. But another big consideration is frost. So when we think about spring temperatures, when are those plants waking up during the season and are they gonna susceptible to frost? So this is a picture here of some blooms, some flowers that got burned by frost. You can see the brown on the petals. And so once we see some browning, especially here in the center part of the flower, that can affect the fruit and you might lose a crop. And I wanted to show this picture as well. So when temperatures get too cold during the winter time, we can see plant die back. So this is a picture of an apple tree that's suffering from what we call winter injury. And so this tree's the leaves aren't coming out. You can see in comparison to trees in the background that have full leaves out. This tree unfortunately is gonna die, so it's declining. So where in your landscape should you plant fruit? So if we're looking at the contour of this landscape here, the things that we are looking for are a site that is more in the middle. So higher sites may be affected by prevailing the winds and strong winds. When you get into lower sites, this is actually where cold air will drain. And so this low ground can have much colder temperatures than higher ground. So we're really looking for this middle ground area where it's a little bit flatter and easier to work with your trees or your berry crops. So since I specialize in tree fruit, a lot of my am examples are a tree fruit, but I know that berry crops are important too. So I'll try to mention them as well. So another thing to think about are the wooded areas. If you have wooded areas around your land, so dense woods can actually be a barrier to cold air movement. And so even if you're on a site that is a good location but you have a forest that blocks cold air from moving down to a lower area, you might actually trap that cold air and you could see some winter damage in winter injury. But if you do have a forested piece of land, you could actually clear strips in it that are about 50 feet wide to allow channels for that cold air to move down into lower areas. Another thing to consider is that your fruit crops will need adequate sunlight. So at least a minimum of eight hours a day. And if you have really windy sites and you're concerned that your plants might be damaged by wind or that the high winds could actually alter your growth of plants especially trees, you can plant wind breaks. So that's what we see here. This is a wind break next to an apple orchard. You can see that there aren't that many leaves down. And branches down towards the bottom of the trees. They're spaced out so that if there is cold air coming through, it can actually move through those trees, but it blocks enough of that wind to protect those apple trees. So that might be an option for your site. Another thing that you should consider is just getting to know your soil. So what's the soil type of your land. And this is a tool that I've used to get to know my area here in Michigan, in west central Michigan. This is a tool from the NRCS. And you can actually click on different parts of the map and it will tell you what soil series you're looking at in a specific area and what some of the soils are locally around your land. So can be a helpful tool just to understand what soil types are and if it might be suitable for fruit production. Now, when we think about the soil itself, you wanna consider what the land is being currently used for. So this is actually a picture of an old apple orchard. And this is where the grass row middles were, and this is where the old apple trees were that were removed. Some areas might have been forested before, other areas might be in pasture land or have been used for crops like agronomic crops, such as corn or soybeans, where you might have an area in your yard that's been grass for a long time. So you wanna just consider what has been there in the past, and then you wanna test your soil to see how fertile it is. So what nutrients are there. And this is really important. Something that I wanted to emphasize a lot today. It's very, very important to test your soil before you put fruit trees in. Because soil affects how the trees and the berry crops will grow. And I'll talk more about that in a little bit. If you are replacing trees, so if you had fruit trees before, you want to try to remove as many roots as possible from that soil, you also wanna consider that there might be some soil-borne diseases. And so if you've purchased land that has really old apple trees on it for example, you want to think about the potential for some diseases in that site and how you might remediate the soil. So it can happen over time if you grow the same crop. Is that soil-borne pathogens can build up in the soil 'cause there's a constant food source for a long time. And so if you put new plants in that planting, they may not do as well, because they've got pathogens already in the soil. And just something else to consider. So soils on higher ground might have been more eroded and they may be drier compared to soils on lower ground that may have deeper top soil, but they may also be wetter. So, like I said, get to know your soil and get to know your land a little bit to decide where to put your fruit crops. So what is a soil test? Some of you may already have heard of this in other other situations. But basically a soil test is something where you can sample the soil in your land and send it into the diagnostic lab at Michigan State. And they'll tell you some information about your soil. So things like soil texture and soil pH, the levels of different nutrients in your soil, like phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, some of these nutrients that are really important for plant growth. They'll also tell you the level of soil organic matter. And then with this soil test, the lab will actually give you recommendations on how you can remediate your soil, what kinds of things are deficient for the specific crop that you'd like to grow. And they can give recommendations on how to make your soil the best that it can be for that crop. And I just have information here for the soil. The MSU, Soil and Plant Nutrient Lab. So this is a website you can go to and they'll provide information on how to sample and how to send in your sample to them. So, they can do that soil test properly. Another thing I wanted to mention briefly is that you may also need a nematode test. And if you don't know what an nematode is, they're actually very small microscopic ground worms. And you can see here, this is a plant root, and these here are little nematodes that are living inside the roots. So there are a couple different nematodes that feed on plant roots. So they can either feed on the outside or actually go and live inside the roots. But a big problem with nematodes is not just the feeding, it's also that they can transmit diseases such as viruses. And so this can really affect root health. And if you have a lot of nematodes in your soil, it can inhibit plant growth and keep your plants from growing healthy and producing fruit. So this is something that can be important to test, particularly if your site has been an open pasture, or if it's been a crop land, or if it's a replant site. So if you've had fruit there growing for a long time in the past, you would wanna think about having a nematode test done. And again, you can submit samples in a plastic bag. Here you can put soil samples in plastic bags and send them to the Michigan state Diagnostic Lab. And they'll also help you understand what to do to help suppress the nematode populations in your soil. So thinking a little bit about soil, I wanted to just talk through it. I think tomorrow you'll hear more about it, for the nutrient talk and the plant nutrient talk. So, this is just kind of a brief introduction. But when we think about soil texture, we're talking about three things. So sand, silt and clay. And you can see this picture here, this is a soil that has clay in it. So if you wet some soil and grab it in your hand, and you press on it, you can make an indentation, and it will hold if there's a lot of clay in there. And so these three components, sand, silt and clay, make up our soils. And the different percentages of each component are what forms the soils that we have and helps us decide whether it's gonna be suitable for fruit crops. So for example, if you had a soil that was all clay, that's gonna really bind up nutrients and that won't be a good spot for fruit crops. But if you have something that's primarily sand, that can also be a challenge for growing through and holding onto nutrients. So, we talk about soils using this triangle. So there are a lot of different soil types. And the way we talk about it is that a certain percentage is made up of clay, another percentage is made up of silt and another of sand. So depending where you are on the triangle, is what your soil makeup is. So for example, a lot of plants really like a sandy loam soil, where you're seeing a majority sand, silt as well, but not very much clay. And so this soil type makes a lot of plants very happy. And the nutrients are available, it's not too wet. So this is just something to think about. When I go talk with growers, I think a lot of times in their fields. In one field they can have an area that's really high clay and an area that's very heavy sand. And so it's just important to understand what soil types you have and how your plants might grow and respond. Because these different soil texture affect the characteristics of your soil. So for example, if you have a really heavy sand soil that is not gonna hold water very well. So we talk about water holding capacity. And if you have a heavy clay soil that can hold a lot of water, which could be too much for your plants. So this is why we talk about these different soil textures. Another thing that's important is poor space and water infiltration. So again, if you have a lot of sand, the water's gonna run through that quickly. Where as if you have more of a clay soil, there won't be a lot of infiltration and pore space likely. So just different things to consider. Another characteristic of soil is the pH. So for plants, the preferred range is about 6 to 6.5 pH. So not too acidic, kind of right in the middle, not too basic. Blueberries are a different case. So they prefer more acidic soils than the 4.5 to 5.5 range. And I wanted to talk about this briefly just because the soil pH really affects how available nutrients are. And so this is a common figure that we talk about with plant nutrition. To think about, well, you have the soil, you have nutrients, and grass, and things like that. Or decomposing material in your soil, and that's providing nutrients and we apply fertilizer, but what's actually available to the plant? And so why pH is important is because if you have pH that's for example, really low, what starts happening is this is the available amount of nutrients. So if you have low pH, you can see that this bar here narrows. And what that's showing is that available nitrogen, or the nitrogen is less available to plants if pH is low. And so where nitrogen most available, is in that mid range of pH. And again, if you have really high pH soils, nitrogen becomes less available. So each nutrient becomes more or less available depending on pH. And so this is just something to consider. It's one reason why plants do well and moderate soil Phs. Is because these really important nutrients for plant growth are more available. So another important soil characteristic to think about is bulk density or soil compaction. So this is showing an example of a soil that doesn't have compaction in the subsurface soil. And then this soil here is showing this compacted layer underneath the plant. And what you can see is the plants are different sizes. So when the roots are restricted, we see a restriction in plant growth. And so we really wanna see soils with low or no compaction, so that the roots can grow freely and they can take up nutrients. And another factor to consider is organic matter. So I have this picture of the soil profile just to take a different look at the soil. So we have plants growing up here, and then this is something called the O horizon. And this is where a lot of that organic material is. So it's being decomposed by microorganisms. And then we have the decomposing material broken down into soil here in the A horizon. And then further down, we have what we call the B horizon. And we start to see soil with less organic matter, but it's still carrying nutrients. And really this top 30 inches of soil or so, this is where most of the roots are. And then below that, we start to see the influence of the bedrock material. And so this is just showing the formation of soil from the bedrock here, and then the influence of the vegetation at the top of the soil line providing organic matter. And so these factors are really important for healthy root systems. So the organic matter here in the upper layers of the soil, and then the nutrient availability here, this is what helps support most of the roots. Like I mentioned, there gonna be in this top 30 inches of soil or so. And so supporting good soil development and organic matter is important to support the fruit crops and help plants take up nutrients. So a little bit more on soil organic matter. It is from plant and animal residues that get incorporated into the soil, and then that material starts getting decomposed by microorganisms into something called humus. Now I wanted to show this picture here, because this is from some work that I did in the past. Looking at a site where we were planting apple trees. And you can just see the differences in organic matter. So, this soil here is very light in color, it looks more sandy. The soil isn't very well textured compared to this soil here, that's much darker. So this is from an area that was grassed previously, where this soil had been cleared and there wasn't vegetation growing in it. And you can see this soil is a lot more chunky. So this is a factor of having a lot of organic matter because organic matter creates these sites where plant materials binding up and it creates these pockets of soil and nutrients that then continue to break down and make nutrients available for plants. So having this soil structure also increases water holding capacity, compared to something like the soil where water could more freely run through. And organic matter creates a nutrient bank. If you think about what's kept in the soil organic matter, it's like the savings account of plants and of nutrients. And I mentioned soil structure. So this soil also has... It's less likely to become eroded because there's organic matter binding the soil together compared to something like this finer soil that could easily be blown or washed away. So once you get that soil test back and you see that your soil might need some amendments, one thing I just wanted to of point out is it is because we're working with perennial crops, it is a lot easier to amend the soil before you put plants in the ground. And so if you do need any soil amendments, be sure that you do that before you plant. Some folks even work on amending their soil for two to three years before planting, because some of the changes can take time depending on what you need to do. Particularly if you're trying to increase organic matter in your soil, that can take some time to build up organic matter. If you need to lower pH like for blueberries, you could use sulfur. This is very important for blueberries to make sure you're in that correct pH range at 4.5 to 5.5. You can use ammonium sulfate or iron sulfate if your pH is too low. And you actually need to raise your pH to make it more basic, you can use lime. So this is a picture of lime that's waiting to be a spread on a field. And then you'll just wanna just clap material into the soil. You might also need to add some nutrients like phosphorus, calcium and nitrogen, and incorporate that in the soil as well. And you can do this through fertilizers. You can also use some natural sources of amendments in organic matter, such as mulch or biochar. So this is an example from an experiment in Oregon. And these are actually blueberry roots, where they added different percentages of biochar to the soil. And you can see how the roots responded. So for the different amendments, you can see a lot more root growth when there was biochar. And also they added some saw dust compared to the soil only. So as we are incorporating organic matter, and these amendments, the plants are really responding. You can also incorporate manure or compost and use cover crops or grass. So some of the common cover crops that we use in commercial production might be dry grass or some mustard species. And so these are things that just add green material that has a lot of nitrogens. It has carbon that can be broken down and you can use these materials to support microorganisms and then also plant growth. So one other thing to think about is how much moisture is moving through your soil. So what happens if your soil is too wet? So we all know that plants need water, but you don't want too much of a good thing. And so there are some plants that can really struggle if there is too much water. Some mature trees especially apples and pears, seem like they can handle more poorly drained soils that hold onto a little bit too much water. But other crops like stone fruit, blueberries, they don't like to have wet feet. So they don't do very well in wet soil. So you wanna think about how well your site drains. And another downside of having soil that's too wet could be that your nutrients are actually leaching out of the root zone. So then those nutrients aren't available to plants anymore if they go down past where the roots are. And so you may need to think about installing tiling. So this is just a picture of an agricultural field here. And you can see the tile coming out of the soil and water flowing down. So if your site is really wet and need to think about tiling and just trying to keep that soil more well drained. Now I just wanted to show an example of how soil moisture can actually affect that soil profile. So this example here, this is a well drained soil, and it actually has a pretty thick layer of soil with organic matter in it. But you can see that in comparison with the soil, we see a thinner organic layer. And when you have a lot of moisture in your soil, what you'll often see is the soil will look gray. And so that's an indicator that there's too much moisture, there's no oxygen getting down. The roots aren't growing in this deeper layer very well, 'cause they can't survive. There's just too much oxygen, I'm sorry, too much water and not enough oxygen for them to respire and live. So having proper soil drainage is very important. So on the other side of that, what happens if your soil is too dry? So a lot of our nutrients move with the soil water. And we know that plants need water, but we often don't think about how the nutrients are really being taken up into the plant. And so I just wanted to mention a few things here. So one way that roots can take up nutrients is by something called mass flow that's diagrammed here. And what that actually means is that some nutrients like nitrogen calcium and magnesium are in the soil water solution. And so when roots are taking up water, they're taking up these nutrients very rapidly with that water. There are other nutrients like potassium and phosphorus that don't move in the soil solution quite so rapidly. They move through another mechanism called diffusion. And so what happens is those nutrients move from a really high concentration of phosphorus, for example, and they're still moving through water, but it's quite a bit slower. They move from high concentration to low concentration. And so as the roots are taking up phosphorus, there becomes a low concentration around the root because that phosphorus went into the root, and then the higher concentrations of phosphorus out here then will gradually move closer to the root and then the root can take it up. There's another way too that roots take up nutrients that I'll just mention briefly. The last way is through something called interception. And that's just when the root basically comes right in contact with the nutrient as it's growing. But mass flow and diffusion are really important processes when we think about soil water. So basically when the soil's too wet, those two processes are very limited. And so it's hard for roots to take up nutrients. Also when the soil's too dry, it can actually limit how well roots move through the soil. And it also limits new roots being produced. So just the way that the plants function, they may not produce new roots when the soil is too dry. And those beneficial microbes thrive in soil moisture and breaking down organic matter. So if it's too dry, those processes can't happen either. So you might end up seeing that your plants are very stunted. So another thing to think about is managing weeds. So fruit crops are not good competitors with weeds. And some of these perennial weeds, especially things like thistle, multifloran rose, these plants can really outcompete fruit crops. And so this is a picture here of tree fruit orchard where the weeds weren't very controlled. And these trees are about two feet stunted from where they should be. So you can see all the weeds growing around the root zone. If you think about grass, how many roots there are for grass plants. Basically for every root of an apple tree, you might have a hundred grassroots. And so those fruit crops just can't outcompete those grasses for water and nutrients. So you really wanna make sure you're controlling weeds before planting. You can treat with herbicide in the summer or the fall. And if the weeds are very established, it might require a couple herbicide treatments to just really make sure that you're taking care of those weeds before you plant. So how to get ready for actually planting. So I wanted to just talk through this a little bit. We've talked about site preparation and what you should do, but I just wanted to get of some examples of how you might actually physically put plants in the ground. So one thing to think about is where you wanna get your plants. If you wanna order them locally or from out of state. And going to a nursery that has high quality plants is important. Things to think about are, making sure that the plants are virus free typically and are tested. And so you're just really getting good high quality plants for your site. Another thing to think about is will you need cross pollination? So will you need a couple varieties of the crop that you're growing? For example, apples need at least two varieties to cross pollinate to set fruit. So that's information too you can talk about with the nursery and they'll make recommendations if you need to cross pollinate. So once the soil amendments have worked and you know that you've got good levels of nutrients and that your soil peach is correct, that's particularly important. Then you can really start laying out your planting and marking where you want rose to go. If you do a cover crop, you might actually strip kill the area where you're putting trees in. So that's an example here. You can kind of see this more bare soil. This was all grass before. And before we were planting apple trees, we sprayed herbicide here just to control the weeds where we were gonna plant apple trees. And you can use different tools to plant as well. So you can use a shovel. This is an auger here that we use to dig holes to plant apple trees. Some crops depending on how many you're wanting to plant, there are some commercial planters that you can use, like tree planters or strawberry planters. So if you're really thinking about putting in a lot of acreage, you might wanna look into those options as well. Then you wanna look at the root system. You may actually need to trim roots or break up the root ball before you put plants in the ground. So planning fruit trees. One thing that is very important for fruit trees is making sure that the graft union is above the soil line. And I'll talk a little bit about grafting later. That's just for a tree placement in the soil. Another thing that you may need to do is what we call whip a tree. So it's where if you're buying a tree from a nursery, sometimes you might see a tree that has a lot of branches coming off. So you may wanna actually remove those and hope the trees get established before it starts growing more branches. And this also helps remove limbs of poor quality, and make sure that you have limbs of similar sizes. So, if there's one limb that is really big and there are a couple that are really small, what will likely happen is that those big limbs will take over and try to be the main trunk of the tree, while the smaller limbs may not grow as well. So this is just a way to make sure that your tree is starting out in good size. And you are also gonna wanna remove dead or broken branches and roots that you see. Just cut those off and get rid of those. So before planting, you also wanna make sure that your roots stay moist. So these roots were likely dug in a nursery and then transported and shipped to your location. And so those roots can dry out really quickly. So you wanna make sure whether you spray them or you can put them in a five gallon bucket with water for just a short time before you plant just to keep those roots moist. And you wanna make sure that your hole is the right size for your root system. And so what can happen if you don't do that? If you don't have a big hole, is that the roots can get bent and they won't grow very well. So you wanna make sure that you really have the right size hole for your root system. You can trim off some of the roots. If there's one that's really growing long, you can trim it back to try to fit your hole. And then once you put the tree in the ground, you can stomp on the soil around it and fill in the area. One thing to watch out for is if it rains and you realize that you need some more soil here, go ahead and fill it back in. So you really wanna make sure that the root system is well supported. And just briefly, I wanted to talk a little bit about stocks. So this is something that we talk more about with tree fruit, but you can get trees of different sizes. And the way that we do that is we actually have a separate root system that is grafted and combined with a variety that we're interested in. And so these different root stocks that are listed here on the bottom. So for example, M9 is a really common root stock that we use for apple. This provides a tree that's little bit taller than I am. I guess you can't see me right now, I'm five, four. And so these morphine rootstock can be really nice and something that I can reach from the ground or with a short ladder. Some of the other trees can be very tall. The old standard trees can be upwards of 20 feet or so. So this might be better suited for your situation for your site. If you would like a smaller tree, there are quite a few options. In apple there are, some in pear, some in cherry as well. And then some in peach are developing. So this might just be something to consider for your site. So for planting blueberries, you can use a shovel to plant. This is a picture of a blueberry that is from a container. You can also buy bare root plants. If they're in a container, the container often have peat in the bottom. So you just wanna make sure you break up that root ball. So what can happen is blueberry, the roots can actually just stay in that peat, especially if your soil type is a little bit different. Or if you have very sandy soil, so it's different than what's in that container. The roots can get bound and that will keep your plants from growing. Again, these roots can dry out quickly, so you wanna sure that you keep those roots moist before planting. You may need to add peat to the planting hole as well, just to help keep that pH down and support those blueberry roots. And then it can be helpful too to mulch after planting and keep the soil moisture in the soil after you are planting and just protect that root system and support that root system. You may need to also irrigate. And so depending on the moisture in your soil and the water holding capacity, it might be helpful to just irrigate irrigate as soon as you can depending on your site. So switching to strawberries, strawberries have pretty small root systems when you get them. So these are bear root plants. This is actually a plug plant from a nursery. And so planting strawberries, you can dig a hole with this little planning tool here that you grab the bottom of the root system and actually force it down and it'll put strawberry plants in the ground. You can use a hand shovel as well. You may need to trim the roots if they're very long, just to make sure that they're going down into the soil and not bending. And you also wanna keep this crown. So this area where the new leaves are coming out, you wanna keep that above the soil line. And so that will help new growth. If you get soil in the crown, then it'll actually kill the growing point. So you wanna make sure that's above the ground. And for strawberries, there are some different options in how you can plant them in your site. Such as matted row, raised beds or using plasticulture. And there are different varieties too that you can use that only bear in June or some that bear fruit during the season. So these are some other considerations and what strawberries you'd like to plant in your area. And then for raspberries and blackberries, I wanted to mention this briefly as well. Again, it's important not to stifle the roots system. So these are some raspberries here and then these are some blackberries. So you wanna make sure that this root system isn't getting bent. Some folks will dig a hole to fit that root system. I've seen some other folks actually dig almost like a trench, and then they lay the root systems out on the side. Because the new canes that are coming up are actually gonna grow from these fruits. And so that's just another way to help the root systems grow and make sure that they're not getting bent so that they stay healthy. Again, you might need to trim some of these roots if they're too long or don't quite fit the hole that you're digging. Just don't wanna trim them too much. And then I just wanted to mention that the spacing for especially raspberries and blackberries, but some of the other fruit crops as well can depend a lot on the growth habit of the plants and the variety. So you may just wanna check it with the nursery and find out what spacing you need to make sure the plants are gonna grow well and not compete with each other too much. And then for the cane berries, you also wanna plant with the crown one to two inches above the soil. So you don't wanna plant them too deep here. And depending on your site, you may need to irrigate as well. So just kind of generally, I think if you have the ability to irrigate for fruit crops, it really helps them get more established. For some situations, you may not need to have a full irrigation system, but it just helps those plants get established and it helps the roots start growing. So another quick thing that I wanted to mention is trellising. And so in some situations it might be really helpful to have a support system for your plants. This is an example of some raspberry plants growing in Minnesota. And you can see these two trellis types that you could use. There's a V trellis here and then a T trellis. And the canes just grow in between the wires on either side. And it just helps the canes stay upright so they don't fall over, so you're keeping fruit off the ground. And then for something like tree fruit, this may be a little bit too intense for a backyard grower, but I just wanted to kind of mention it just to show some examples of what can be done. Especially for these thinner trees, we have these different trellis systems that support trees and you can get a lot of light intensity, light coming in and it helps the trees grow and stay small, but still support a lot of fruit production. And so light can also be really important for apples for example, for coloring. So the red color that we see on apples is affected by the amount of light that's hitting the apple. So here just some options for trellising tree fruit. These are gala apples and this is a system where two branches were trellis to these lattice here. And so you can see it just creates a really thin canopy. So if you're interested in something like this, this might be an option. It is quite a bit of effort and it can be expensive, but it's another way to support tree growth. But I just wanted to point out here too, that you wanna make sure your trellis system is stable. This was a situation where there was some high winds that came and blew the trellising over. And so you wanna make sure that your trellis is really sturdy if you are gonna put up a trellis. And I mentioned it briefly before, but if you were thinking about irrigating, as I said, it is helpful for plants when they're getting established. But I just wanted to mention too that when you irrigate, you don't wanna irrigate too much. So we talk about irrigating more often in smaller amounts so that you don't wash the nutrients out of the soil or out of the root zone. And so if you're just doing it a little bit, you're supporting those roots that are pretty shallow and they can take up water and nutrients that are available in that top 30 inches of soil or so. And there are a couple types that you can use. So one is trickle irrigation, it's cheaper, it applies water and at a slower rate. But you could also use a sprinkler system. So it's a little bit more expensive and it does use more water. But these are some different options for irrigation systems. Another way to keep soil moisture around your fruit crops is by mulching. So if you apply wood mulch, or sawdust, or even straw, that can help keep moisture in the soil. And if you are irrigating, you just wanna make sure that you're using a clean source of water. And so if you're using irrigation from a local well or a pond, you wanna make sure that your irrigation source or your water source can run through the irrigation system. And if not, you can make accommodations to make sure you do have enough water. And for wildlife management, I know this can be a big issue for some folks. Deer certainly love fruit, just like we do. And they like munching on tender shoots and leaves. So this is an example of a buck rub on a tree trunk. So a deer can be a big challenge. So you wanna think about how much wildlife you have around, what kinds of measures you need to take to prevent wildlife from munching on your fruit crops. Another thing to think about are rabbits and other rodents. So they like bark, and leaves, and berries, for the different fruit crops. Birds especially will eat right berries. I've heard a lot of stories from homeowners that they were really looking forward to their fresh blueberry crop, and the day before they were gonna go out and pick, they saw all the birds came in and ate their berries. So, this is a picture of blueberries with some bird damage on it. And this is some netting. So netting is a common approach to helping prevent birds from causing damage. For some of the other wildlife like deer and rabbits, you can use repellants,. Or some of the fear-based repellents seem to work, some of the (indistinct) that are repellents. I've also seen some folks actually wrap trunks with paper or plastic to try to protect them from deer rubs. And I know later on in the next week of webinars, there's gonna be some folks that are talking more about this. So, if you're interested in wildlife management, stay tuned and they'll have more things to say about that. So just kind of a recap, make sure you start with the good foundation. So when you're picking your site, think about weather, wind, your soil type and choose the right crop for you. So what do you really wanna grow? What are you gonna enjoy? And make sure it's something that you would really like to invest your time in. And the next thing make sure that you test your soil and you amend before you put plants in the ground. So you wanna really set out with the best situation possible so that your plants can be successful. And once they're in the ground, just think about how you need to support them. Whether that's managing wildlife, irrigating, or putting up any kind of trellis system. And finally enjoy. These are things that really add value to our lives and something wonderful to share with your neighbors. So this should be a lot of fun. And I just wanted to put up at the end as well. My contact information, if you'd like to reach out. Michigan State also has quite a few resources. If you have questions, feel free to email me or contact the extension office here in Oceana County, in Hart. And I'm happy to take questions. It looks like we have a few minutes here. - Yes, Emily, we do have a few minutes and there are a number of questions that have been coming in the chat that'll be appropriate for you and for talks coming up over the next couple weeks. So it's an interesting collection here. - Okay. - Well, we can start up above at the top. And if you remember the early part of your presentation, you were mentioning something about dormancy. And someone did ask if you could go through different types of dormancy. - Different types of dormancy for... That's a good question. So I would have to go back and refresh the different types of dormancy. I don't know if anyone else can jump onto that one. - This might be a good question for our discussion that we have on Friday. - I think that's what I was thinking too. - May be we can put that on our list. - Yes, 'cause I think that'll fit in quite well in thinking about training, pruning, crop load management, it'll come into play later on as well. So I think we can stack that one for Friday. By the way, that is a reminder to everybody here. If we do not get to your question today or over the next couple days, I am logging them and they will be covered during our Friday panel discussion. The panel discussion on Friday is of the speakers, the presenters over the course of this week. And we'll discuss questions that we did not get covered in addition to other questions that any of you present between sessions, and some other questions that have been coming in before this point. So it'll be a good way to look at incorporating these different talks together. By the way, Emily, I did wanna quickly thank you. That was a very good introduction for not just site selection today, but what we're gonna be talking about over these next few sessions. So that was really good. Thank you. - Sure. - A couple questions actually, Cheyenne, you'll probably discuss them tomorrow. A couple questions came in asking about soil survey tool, soil testing. I assume you'll be covering those tomorrow. - I did, I also put links in the chat in case people didn't see them. A couple of 'em was just like we request, but we'll talk about them more tomorrow too. - Perfect. Emily, you were mentioning biochar and some other soil amendments. I know Cheyenne can talk about nutrition stuff tomorrow, but do you wanna touch on what biochar is? - So it's a carbon based material. You can purchase it, but it's just a carbon based material that you can incorporate into your soil. And so just kind of adding that organic matter. So at a basic level, that's what it is. If you'd like more information, feel free to email me and I can give you some more specific information about it. But it's a compound that I think in ag we're testing a little bit more to see the benefits of it. But I can certainly give you more information if you'd like. - Perfect. I saw someone make a comment and I felt the need to mention it. Is you were talking about getting plants and deciding what to plant where you're gonna get it. And they mentioned how a couple nurseries they work with are two years out. That is something that needs to be thought about when you're are scaling up. If you're buying one or two trees from a local nursery for landscaping, that's one thing that you're buying those on site at the moment. But if you're buying any number of plants with a nursery that caters to this type of growing, they grow based on orders. So you're typically a couple years out. Do you wanna touch on that anymore, Emily? - No, I think that's perfect. Thank you for mentioning that. 'Cause it is a concern for some people, but I think you had it well. Just that if you're scaling up and you want a lot of plants, you wanna plan ahead. - I see in the chat here a couple new questions came in. Someone's going to be putting in some raspberries, their soil says it's heavy and wet. Best way to raise beds. Any tools, techniques for creating a raised bed environment? - Yeah, that's a great question. So I know online there are a lot of different designs that you can use. The experience that I've had is just using two by fours to build up a bed area and then fill it in with soil. And that will really help drain your soil. It'll be a lot dryer. I don't know if you guys have other comments or experience on that. I'd be happy to send some links to Carol if you wanna email me directly. - There's also like mounders. So a lot of commercial raspberry plantings are mounded like how potatoes and stuff are grown. So they'll take soil and they'll make like cute little mound and that can help with drainage and stuff like that. - You don't see it a whole lot anymore nowadays, but you look at some old European techniques and some early American techniques where they would actually create something that looks like the vegetable or the raised beds, but on a much larger scale. They would disk the soil such that you'd have mounds that were 30, 40 feet wide and then troughs that were 30 feet wide. And it just was this rolling landscape of high area, low area that went alongside any elevation so that you didn't have runoff, but you did have high areas that helped dry the soil out. And that's a technique some people are starting to reincorporate again. So any way to move that soil, whether it's through discing or on smaller scale, what you were saying two by fours or some sort of walling off would benefit. Someone's talking about transplanting some plants that they already have. Some cold hearty cherries, lots of suck, basically 10 year old trees. Can you dig them up and transplant some of the suckers or the plant itself? - Yeah, that's a good question. So I guess I have a couple questions. Where are the suckers coming from? If they're coming from the ground, which I assume they are, was this- Okay, so they are, thank you. So my guess is that this tree was grafted. And so typically for cherries, we have rootstock on the bottom and then the variety that you want to eat on the top. And so if that's the case, the suckers that you're seeing are not gonna be a variety of cherry that you wanna eat. And so I would probably recommend just cutting those back. - Okay. Well, there were a couple of other questions in the chat, but I think that that pretty much covers most of the important stuff that we saw there. At least that's important today. A couple of those other topics will be coming up in in subsequent presentations.