The mulch looks nutrient poor and too thick. You will have to water your trees heavily to make up for that while they establish roots. The nutrient poor mulch as it composts will also slow down the growth rate of your trees. Trees don't grow well in the outdoor equivalent of computer clean rooms. Competition often spurs a tree and you're eliminating all that.

You look to be in Great Plains you don't need weed killer you need to plant the trees such that you can run a large tractor / mower between the trees monthly or seasonally.

In fact, the need the weeds to maintain soil moisture and the water table.

Howdy, thanks for your reply. Yes i am in the plains, western Kansas to be exact. As far as the mulch goes and watering heavily, what you dont see is we have a 30" diameter ring of emitter tubing around each tree under the mulch. They each have 5 .9 gph emitters and are laying on top of the landscape fabric with the excess fabric folded over them to keep them clean and working. So the mulch is actually there to help retain the moisture. The trees are spaced 20' apart so there is plenty of room to get my tractor and or mower through and around them. I have to disagree with you on the weeds issue. Weeds compete with the trees for both moisture and nutrients. They are not wanted or needed. Thanks

Well you are wrong about the weeds but I'm not going to argue.

Weeds might not be pretty like you like but that aren't going to hurt the trees near as much as the solution you propose to kill the weeds. Sorry, that's just a fact.

Plant up the fields in alfalfa if you want something prettier that deer like to graze too.

What did you use for the mulch rings?

AgroCoders, You are not correct. As posted from the Washington State University Extension Site

Why control weeds in orchards?

Reduced competition: trees may be much larger than most weeds, but they have root systems that do not compete well with other plants. Where cover crop or weeds grow, the bulk of tree roots form in the second and third foot of soil. If competition is reduced, the trees form the highest percentage of their roots in the much more biologically active first two feet of soil depth. In areas with poor quality soils, the orchardist should not give the best foot of soil to the weeds.

Nutrient Management: Weeds can greatly out-compete the trees for nutrients, especially nitrogen. This complicates the growers attempts to create an efficient nutrient balance in the trees, as it is never certain from one application to the next what percentage of the applied nutrient will enter the trees, or when it will get there. Trying to compensate for weed growth by applying higher rates of nitrogen fertilizer may increase the nutrient in the tree, but more often leads to greatly increased weed growth.

Irrigation and Water Management: Weeds use water, which would have been much more beneficial to maintain fruit quality during the hot portion of the Summer. Perhaps even more important, weeds block the sprinkler pattern, which may greatly decrease the efficiency of water application. Blocked sprinklers over-water some areas of the orchard, and under-irrigate others, leading to leaching and drought stress in the same orchard block. Weeds also have the aggravating ability to lean over and tangle the mechanisms of sprinkler heads, preventing their rotation.

PharmaChad they have used zinc galvanized steel it appears from the picture, while the green steel posts can be bought at Lowe's and most big box hardware stores.

PharmaChad, i could not find an economical tree ring solution out there so i took 4x10 sheets of 12 gauge sheetmetal and sheered them into 4 inch by 10 foot sections. I then overlapped, drilled and bolted the ends together so i could later remove them from the trees without cutting them off. After the overlap it gave me a 36" diameter ring. Cost was about $8.50 per ring.

If you find that's too much work you can use this material:

http://www.hayneedle.com/product/mastermarkplastics20fttrimlandscapeedging.cfm?redirect=false&source=pla&kwid=Gardening%20Accessories%20High&tid=JEN1601&adtype=pla&kw=&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=JEN1601&gclid=CNGXpJz06r4CFQcSMwodelwAGA

Here is a link that might be useful: Black Plastic Edging

We considered plastic edging but wanted something more durable and able to handle repeated encounters with weed eaters and mower decks. As far as work involved goes, the plastic edging would have to be trenched into the soil to make it effective. The metal tree rings we just laid them in place and stood on them. Worked perfectly and a lot less work than hand trenching in plastic edging.

This post was edited by denaliakitas on Sun, Jun 8, 14 at 14:38

Wow that's pretty expensive! I am thinking about
Doing something similar. Do you think cutting
55 gallon drums every 4 to 6 inches would work
as a mulch ring?

PharmaChad.
That would work but i wanted a bit larger diameter. How many trees are you wanting to make rings for? We thought about drums but to cut 36 rings out of barrels would have taken a lot of time and short of a plasma cutter it would have burned through a lot of blades or acetylene with a torch.

AgroCoders
It is not galvanized steel and the posts have nothing to do with the tree rings. Thanks

It's zinc coating the steel. That is called galvanized steel. Un-galvanized steel would rust far too fast.

I am in the steel industry and a welder by trade and i am letting you know that it is not galvanized, zinc or otherwise. It can rust all it wants to. Around here 12 gauge steel will take decades before being structurally compromised by rust.

It doesn't matter if you are in the steel industry. They treat it before it gets out the door.

The splotches on your rings is zinc but I won't argue the point with you further. Denying that it's galvanized steel won't make it rust faster.

I was thinking about using plastic drums which
are easier to cut to put around in- ground blueberry
bushes??? I think the 2 foot diameter would be
ok for blueberries?

Hi Denalia, as someone pointed out above that mulch has not composted yet so it will pull nitrogen from your trees. Since you already bought it just plan on fertilizing to compensate and you will be fine. I would also not recommend putting mulch on top of weed fabric, I did that and the seeds landed on the mulch and grew vigorously over the weed barrier. If that happens you can do what I did: remove the mulch and have just fabric around the trees. For the first year or two I would not worry about weeds outside those barriers as the roots will be within the ring. After that I would guess you could mow or weed eat well enough around them. At some point the tree canopy is shading enough that the weeds fade on their own. The main problem will be controlling the weeds within the barrier for the first few years of the trees life.

Scott

AgroCoders
Not that i want to make you out to be an idiot, but those "splotches" you are seeing is where last nights rain drops hit the ground and splashed "dirt" up onto the rings. Right click the pic and choose view image to see the full size picture. I own the fab shop and sheered the rings myself from my own shop inventory. The steel is bare un-galvanized 12 gauge steel. It comes from the forgery with a lite coat of machine oil and that is it.
I hate seeing someone such as yourself talking about something they dont have first hand knowledge of trying to make it seem like they know the facts. SO i also do not wish to argue the point further with you so you can maintain your un-impeachable reputation of knowing it all on the forums.

Denalia, if you look at Agro's profile (s)he just signed up a week or two ago, so I would more view them as an inexperienced poster.

Scott

PharmaChad
I think the plastic barrels would work dandy for blue berries!

I know a lot of "tree experts" frown on the mulching, but I can say that in east Texas it's a fairly common practice and works just fine. I doubt you'll have any issues with your new trees concerning the mulch and watering rings. Good luck! As for spray, I think some people just use plain roundup, but I don't trust doing this. You can use the home remedy stuff - vinegar/dishsoap/salt spray. It works, but doesn't last as long as Monsanto products.

Thanks everyone for the input!

Just curious about the remark about the mulch pulling nitrogen from the trees. I agree that uncomposted bark mulch can pull the nitrogen from the tree. This happens when the mulch is incorporated in the soil. If I understand the post, it is sitting on top of the weed barrier and is doing nothing more than holding in moisture.
Weeds can still grow on top of the mulch but are easily removed.
So, if the mulch is not incorporated into the soil there will be no nitrogen depletion.

I also wanted to add the remark about the metal rusting out.
I live in area that gets about 17-20 inches of rain per year.
I have 18ga steel containers and soil supports and raised beds made of this.
They are going on 18 years and are still good.
If I were in Houston they would only last about 5 years.
I believe in western Kansas you will not have to worry about rust for at least a decade.

Thats a lot of hard work you put into it and it looks neat and organized. If I were you, I would not be concerned about weeds and grass. Weeds actually serve a purpose, they mine nutrients and also condition the soil. Say you are in sandy loose soil. Nature will bring in weeds that have a shallow yet thick root system. On the other hand, say you have hard compacted soil. Nature will bring in weeds with deep tap roots that will get in there and bust up that soil.

Keep in mind that within two years, the root systems on your trees will be well outside of the area covered by your rings. While I think that the mulch rings will keep your roots protected in year #1, I see no benefit in later years.

Also, your watering system may not actually be the best set up. Tree roots spread out in search of water. If you provide routine water within a 2' diamater of the tree, the roots are not being encouraged to spread out and develop. For the first year, it should be fine. However, you might want to think about watering further out from the trees.

One last thing, I would recommend pulling the mulch back from the trunk of the tree. You could cause the trunk to rot.

This post was edited by poolecw on Tue, Jun 10, 14 at 11:42

The mulch on top of weed barrier is a good setup. It will double life of the weed barrier and won't deplete nitrogen in the soil. I do agree that when the trees get big a larger wetted area will probably prove beneficial.

I'd use roundup a yr or two outside the ring being very careful about not drifting any onto the trees. But it won't be much faster than a weed eater.