There is a wonderful free service that Utah State Extention provides for those growing anything in their yard. It is the Plant Pest Advisories. You can subscribe to these advisories so that you will receive an email every week to alert you what you should be looking for in terms of pests and how to fix the problem before it overtakes your plants.

They give advisories on lawn, fruit trees, vegetables, fruits and ornamental plants. I would advise signing up for this free service for anyone that spends any time or money trying to grow plants.

Plant pest advisory link

I find this highly informative, useful and critical. I hope you will too.

At the beginning of the season, it is important to fertilize your fruit trees. They need nitrogen, first and foremost, and they need a lower pH in order for the roots to get the nutrients they need. Many times you will see a chlorosis problem due to a high pH and not just lack of iron or zinc. There could be plenty of iron, but if the pH of the soil prevents it from taking the iron in then you have a problem.

It is for this reason that I choose to fertilize with a soil acidifier formulated fertilizer like Miracid or another brand that is usually 30-10-10 with trace elements, particularly sulfur. It is equally important to get it down to the roots so the grass doesn’t steal most of the nutrients before it soaks down. For this I use a Ross Root Feeder.

As for the amount, it depends on a number of conditions. In this photo I used the miracle grow spray fertilizer hooked up to the root feeder, however, I have since purchased a Ross Tree Root Feeder which is easier since it is all one unit. I let it go for 2-3 minutes total in multiple holes around the drip line.

Doing this every year right before blossoming will give the tree much needed help in growing great fruit.

In a prior post I discussed very basic pest and disease practices to control your unwanted plant killers. In order to be effective while being environmentally friendly, most states use an integrated pest management (IPM) program. These are highly informative and very useful. You can even subscribe to the advisories so that you can be alerted to when certain pests are appearing and when to try and control them.

Utah has a great website for this. www.utahpests.usu.edu

I have throughly read the Home Orchard Pest Management Guide since we have 8 fruit trees in our yard. Fruit trees are the highest maintenance producer in your yard so it is very important to read and follow this resource if you have fruit trees. It may seem overwhelming, but this guide actually makes it pretty easy to understand since there are great pictures to describe stages of growth, pest and disease types.

Now is the time to learn because the best time to manage pests is now before the problems can begin. Hopefully you read my post on dormant sprays since you should have already done that for some trees and should be doing it now for others.