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What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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Posted by
californian 10 (
My Page) on
Fri, Apr 6, 07 at 14:08
Particularly in a climate like Orange County, California?
I live on a hillside and the top foot and a half of soil in almost pure gray clay. Underneath that is an orange/yellow thicker layer of caliche streaked with many white colored veins of what I guess is some kind of alkali, salt, calcium deposits. Terrible stuff that gets so hard when dry that I have to use a jackhammer I bought to dig planting holes if the soil is dry. When wet it turns to a sticky mess that sticks to your shoes and the shovel. Also, since I am on a hillside it is difficult to water as most of the water runs off unless I build dirt dikes around the plants to keep the water from running off.
Eucalyptus and chinese elms seem to be about the only kind of trees that thrive under these conditions.
I have planted maybe fifteen different types of fruit trees at various times but they all grow so slow, probably because of the soil. One fig tree has only increased in height by three inches in three years. It took my Meiwa Kumquat fifteen years to get five feet high. My asian pears have only grown about a foot in three years, except for my Hosui that has got up to about seven feet.
Also, are there some varities of fruit trees that do better than others of the same species, or are their some rootstocks that do better in clay, and if so where can a retail buyer get them? Thanks. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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- Posted by bboy z8 WA USA (My Page) on
Fri, Apr 6, 07 at 16:29
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| Cal: It is the gray description that concerns me most. Gray means the soil is very poorly drained. But the material underneath sounds better. Guess I would think about removing the gray material and replacing it with good topsoil or planting mix. Would do this when planting new trees. This would allow water to penetrate into the lower material which sounds better drained and is hopefully more permeable and better for root growth. The Fruitnut |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| I was told that Figs like clay, not sure about pure clay though. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| Get a kiln and start manufactoring pottery. When enough clay has been used up, backfill with real topsoil! Or just go with raised beds. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| @Cal I know that soil all too well. You can forget about growing fruit trees in that soil. Its impenetrable and the nutrients are quickly bound up due to the alkalinity. Even citrus(which I tried) was a complete failure. There is a reason that those hillsides were covered with scrub before the developers scraped away every inch of topsoil. Thats why developers love eucs in SoCal. Which they plant by the truckload. The only solution is to excavate and replace. Mulching exacerbates the problem by retaining moisture and leading to root rot. Sorry for the dire prognosis, but I spent a lot of money battling that soil. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| I have pure clay soil, but raise almost every fruit tree possible in my zone and then some. I have learned to make a mixture of clay with potting soil or serious organic matter, but not to dig too deeply into the clay or it will act like a bucket and hold water and kill the plants. I almost plant the tree on top of the ground surrounded by the clay and potting soil mixture. There are some plants however that don't seem to mind the clay that much. They are as follows: Persimon, ogechee lime, che grafted on osage orange, jujubee, mulberry, muscadine grapes, pear. I have over 100 fruit trees and wish I had better soil. I helped a friend plant a few trees about 4 years ago in good loamy soil. They grow twice as fast as the ones I have and are much healthier, but when given lemonds make lemonade. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| I also have clay-like soil in my backyard. I know too well about the bucket effect described by george. There are two things you may try besides excavating the whole yard. 1. Loosen the soil of the planting spot. Use gypsum to chemically break down the clay.
2. Use good soil to build a dune that is 1 or 2 feet high. Plant the tree on top of the dune. Your tree will be benefitted by the better soil and improved drainage. Good luck.
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RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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- Posted by doof SoCal 10a (My Page) on
Tue, Apr 10, 07 at 10:14
| Avocado trees seem to do just great with little maintenance here. I'm going to have to cut one down in a few days that a renter planted in a corner of the property a few years ago, right up against the foundation. No watering, no mulch, and only about a square yard of visible dirt, the rest concrete. but it's huge now. I used to have an apricot tree, here, too. I'm not sure what variety it was. Came with the house. It was messy but very productive, and, again, received no special care. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| My problem isn't drainage, we are in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history right now, only two inches of rain total in the last eleven months. I live on a hill so any rain I do get mostly runs away downhill. One thing that seems to work for me is after I dig a planting hole I make a cone of pure pea gravel inside the hole and plant the tree on top of that, then refill the rest of the hole with a mixture of clay and compost. If I don't use the gravel and instead use amended soil when the compost decays the soil level goes down and my tree ends up with the grafting union below the level of the surrounding dirt. I then make a berm on the downhill side of the tree to keep water from running away downhill. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| If drainage is not a problem then you probably have a nutrient issue. As stated before, the alkalinity of the soil is binding up the nutrients. You stated that your fig tree has only grown 3 inches in 3 years! I don't know what is normal but mine put on at least 2 feet of growth every year with very little fertilizer. I still think you may have some type of Phytothera root rot which run rampant in those soils and sucks the vigor out of the plant. People who have never lived in SoCal have no idea how gross that soil really is. But look on the brightside, this year is probably not a good year to start a orchard anyway. As there will be no water to give them. Water rationing starts May 1. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| I have had good growth with my Red Haven Peach tree in clay. I dug a big hole, and mixed in a bag of planting mix. Very good growth, but only 9 months old so far. I plan to dig in more mulch each year, and create "donut" shaped mounds around my trees. I have had good luck with peaches in many soils. Ron Wagner,
Decatur, IL |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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the clay is not nearly as big a problem as the caliche. and digging a hole with a jack hammer will in a sense just be creating a pot, which will leave your trees water logged with no drainage. You would be much better off using raised beds for the planting area.
Note: another way to deal with caliche is to scrape all the soil off that you can without having to jack hammer. then buy several gallons of pool acid. pour the pool acid onto the caliche and let it sit over night or longer. The acid will slowly react with the salts that form the caliche and will loosen the soil enough that you can dig it. repeat until you get to the depth you want.
Ultimately, a good mulch a foot thick will help too. It takes years for the mild acids from mulch to penetrate any significant amount of caliche. In the mean time, however, it helps a lot with the clay soil, for those things that can grow in shallow soil. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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My soil is not quite as bad, but is similar. The way I deal with this is to start everything in five or fifteen gallon pots with quality potting soil with perilite, adding water polymers. When the trees are big and bursting out of their 15 gallon pots, they can be planted in a raised bed, four trees to a 4’x 4’bed. Or just keep them potted, and move them up to larger pots. Be informed and fussy about the rootstocks you choose. Find out which is recommended for your area.
Start thinking now of recycling gray water from the bath tub and washing machine, being careful about the soaps, shampoos, detergents you use. Save the cold water you have to run until the warm water starts, and use that for watering also. Urine is flushed every third toilet use, with used toilet paper going in the trash. Or get a compose pile started, and "give back to the earth". Droughts are the norm here. We’ve dealt with them before, and can again.
I have had apricots, avocado, cherries, pear, plum, grapefruit, and grapes that love our soil, for all its problems. Just don’t over water. |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| I live in san diego's eastern suburbs, and have fairly heavy clay soils as well.... the problem i have at the moment is that my wife wants and avocado tree, lemon tree and a lime tree in the backyard, after reading up on these trees it seems she has picked the hardest trees to grow in this area due to poor drainage and soil type, however what the wife wants, the wife gets.... So rather then buying the plants and have them die on me, im in the process of terraformng the backyard... every square inch of it (1/4 of an acre), which is a long, painfull and exhuasting exercise. But nothing that is worth it was supposed to be easy! |
RE: What fruit trees will grow well in pure clay soil?
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| With all the caliche here in New Mexico I've discovered that I need to dig huge holes - ensuring I've got them very deep for drainage and then backfill the hole with caliche-free topsoil mixed with a really good compost, adding humus and Super-thrive as I water the new plant in. I have experimented with soil sulpher both here and in Arizona, and, even though I know it is recommended, the chemistry that occurs in the soil does not support its use. What you're trying to do is to neutralise the alkalinity and change the ph to a suitable plant-supporting level - in other words, create a micro-soil for your plant to grow in. Removing the caliche is the best way to do that. If the layer of caliche is too deep to remove it all and its likely the plant's roots will enter that level it might be worth considering a plant that is either very shallow-rooted or one which is adapted to the alkaline soil. I am now in the process of creating a soil environment for blueberries at 7000 feet in caliche-layered soil - I'll let you know how that works out..... |
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