Hi. I have a small private orchard of a little over 30 trees. First of all I decided what I wanted to eat, then asked every question possible from this forum. There are low maintenance trees (meaning in my humble opinion, that are resistant to diseases, ie, scab, peach leaf curl or cedar apple rust). Resistant is the operative word. It means a little less likely to get those diseases. The diseases mentioned, mainly refer to apples and peaches. I spend usually up to $300.00-500.00 per year. I use those numbers because my orchard (when it began 8 years ago, cost me at least $500.00 a year while I was adding trees. ) Now I have it down to $300.00 a year. Firstly, I bought premium trees. Three years old, minimum, and in the price range of $24.00- $85.00 a tree. Mulch, and top soil cost more than you think. Sprays are costly (+ goggles, spray mask (a good one), packback sprayers and smaller sprayers). A good short ladder, and fruit tree ladder. Professional netting. Fertilizer is your least costly expense. Good tools. Pruning saw, Felco clippers and loppers in two sizes. Muck boots, serious gloves. Once I got into heirloom varieties and hard to find varieties my cost shot right up. You will become a fruit tree junkie like the rest of us. The process is so worth while. The professional and seasoned help in this forum is exceptional. I even stopped buying books! Now I collect every new catalogue and fruit tree site on the web. Good luck with your new orchard. Hope this helps just a bit. Oh yes. . . almost forgot, patience. Mrs. G

City,

I have a relatively new peach planting of about 300 peach trees.

The cost is surprisingly high for such a small planting.

Here, we have to grow peaches in some sort of raised planting (if you want them to perform worth a damn).

We had to terrace the area, which cost me about $1.35/foot. The trees are spaced 18' in the rows, so that works to 24 to 25 bucks per tree. I built the terraces myself (but included all the costs except my labor). If you hire someone to build terraces, they charge around $2.50/foot.

Purchased trees average about $13/tree including shipping. I have grafted quite a few of my own, so the overall cost is less.

I haven't used any synthetic fertilizer, but have used a lot of wood chips. I've either rented equipment to spread wood chips or hired it done. It costs somewhere around $4 per tree per year to mulch them with free wood chips.

Because of the mulch, we don't use much herbicide. Applying it takes labor. We also chop/pull weeds near the tree trunks and we mow the terraces (with a sickle mower).

I haven't done much spraying out there yet. Just some leaf curl and borer sprays. Once in production I expect to spend about $10 per tree per year in total pest control (weeds, insects, fungus). That would include mowing the orchard area.

Equipment is a big expense. If you have three acres, you'll need a tractor. Plan on spending a minimum of $60/tree for equipment, and that's if you have the time and tools to buy used equipment that needs some work. If you buy new, it costs twice that.

The next big ticket item is a deer fence. I haven't put one up yet, but need to. Probably another $10 per tree (if you do it yourself).

There are a ton of small misc. expenses. Little things like flags for marking out trees (Do you have a 200 or 300' tape to mark the trees out?) I'm going through some end of year things now and surprised how all the little things add up.

I bought 50 plastic crates this year (to pick fruit) at 3 bucks a piece. I line the crates with towels so the fruit doesn't bruise. Towels can be purchased fairly inexpensively at garage sales, but they still cost something. Box flats are $20-25 per hundred. You'd be surprised how quickly you go through them. Lots of little odds and ends. I broke my silky saw blade the other day and need a new one. Needed a new battery for my scale. Mileage on your vehicle.

I would say you could add $20 per tree per year for incidentals.

There are a lot more expenses if you plan to sell at the location.

You wouldn't have as much cost if the orchard is strictly "hobby", but 3 acres of trees is a really big orchard for a hobby. Peach trees produce about 15,000 lbs./acre, so you'd be looking at 45,000 lbs. of fruit, much more than your family could ever consume.

This post was edited by olpea on Wed, Dec 4, 13 at 21:48

Words cannot express the appreciation I have to both of you for taking so much time to so very thoroughly answer my question! I sincerely hope other readers will get as much from this as I did, and I'm confident that a lot of people are interested in the financial aspect of backyard orchards even though it seems to be rarely discussed. Ms. G, I must tell you that I follow a lot of your posts on this site and always find them insightful. From what I've seen, the size and scope of your hobby is quite similar to my own. For example, I have about 30 trees right now. Most are 1-2 years old. You are also right about the likelihood of my becoming more and more interested in growing fruit. My hobby just started 2 years ago but has grown exponentially ever since. Though Garden Web and knowledgeable people like you and olpea (above) generally just remind me of how little I know, I am obsessed with learning more and I actually peruse the forum several times a day (sometimes from work, I must confess!). Most of all, your number of $300-$500 per year for 30 trees really helped me more than you know. I fully understand that is just your experience and that mine may be substantially different, but I honestly didn't have a clue. Even if mine ends up costing twice that amount, I can handle that. $10-$16 per tree means I can manage what I have and even ad more! YEAH! Olpea, the thoroughness of your answers really helped me think things through. You certainly got me thinking about things I hadn't considered. It also helped me realize how lucky I am.... I am a City Manager and can get free mulch from our public works department. And it doesn't have to be the low-quality mulch filled with leaves and twigs. If I ask and am willing to wait, they occasionally cut large trees and mulch the trunks, which results in big, nice hardwood mulch. Then again, the leave/twig mulch rots faster and may add more nutrients. Either way, its free. I also have great land so I don't have to build it up or add topsoil. I do get a dump-truck load of rich, dark top soil once in a while when they clean out ditch lines, so again, I am lucky and have that free as well. Third, I have no real deer problem. Even though I'm in the country, I'm surrounded by fields with no cover whatsoever for deer, and they just don't seem to like to get this far from woods/cover. I have a large garden and never had a single deer take a single bite. I have one of those wheels for measuring distance/helping me lay out my orchard. I like those better than tape measures and you might consider it...but I'm sure you have. Best of all...I don't and won't ever get to 300 trees!!!! But I sure enjoyed reading about all the things involved in your operation, and most of it will help me. May I ask how many acres you used to plant 300 trees? Thanks again for both of your answers. I hope others will add their figures so everyone interested in cost estimates can get an average based on multiple answers given here. Thanks all.

You will be surprised how many trees you can fit on 3 acres! I just laid out my orchard of 2 acres. 200 trees plus 25 grapes and I only have 1.25 acres used up. If you went all dwarfs you could fit 400+ per acre! My sour cherry spacing is 15ft between trees, my apples and peaches are 12ft, with 18ft between each row.
I figured my total set up expense around $6000. That's dripline (MUST HAVE) for the whole thing, trees (mine averaged around $9, big price break when you buy 100), stakes, DEER FENCE. The deer fence I think cost about $2500 (or $20 for each tree I could put inside the fence) and I did all the work myself. The deer fence is 1500 linear ft. I only needed to do three sides because one side is protected from our yard and other pens/fences. It was a huge project, but now I cant stay out of there! I have 50 of the trees planted this fall and the other 150 coming in the spring. I already had spraying equipment and a tractor so I didn't worry about that. Chemical is cheap enough if you buy from a coop instead of a home and garden place.
Now the only problem I will have is how to get rid of 12000 pounds of cherries right?? Good thing my wife likes my homemade cherry wine! ;)

Oh ya, I bet the deer will find you when you get trees planted........they REALLY love fruit trees.

Another thing. I had a small orchard in town (45 trees) before I moved out here. I went and got the free mulch from the city chipping lot where they chipped or shredded all of the wood they collected around town. I immediately got viral/bacterial/fungus infections on each and every tree. I don't know for a fact that the problem came from that mulch, but I do know I tore out all of the mulch and the problem did not come back.

It is so much fun (and informative!) reading these answers! Jagchaser, thanks for telling me how many trees you have fit onto 2 acres. While I said I have 3 for trees, I really want to keep my orchard to 2 acres and if I can get anything close to your 200, that's more than I need!!! Sadly- like an idiot- as soon as I bought my new place 2.5 years ago I started spacing all my trees 16-18 feet apart (in both directions) even though they were semi-dwarfs. I guess that was a huge waste of space. Sounds like I can put the rest closer than that. And thanks for the warning about the city government mulch. I'd heard that before, so maybe it is true. You also may be right about the deer. Believe it or not, my only animal problem so far has been from my geese! Don't laugh...those darn things have completely chewed the tips off of several of the small tree's limbs. How strange is that!?!? :) I'm also concerned to hear you say a drip line system is a must have! That is an expense I hadn't planned on. I have a large tank I can pull with my tractor so I had hoped to be able to hand water using that, and I will never have more than about 50 trees (I wonder how many of you once thought the same thing? ha). SO hopefully I can manage watering my limited number with my tank and tractor? Thanks. I'm still interested in hearing other people's COST PER TREE PER YEAR (annual maintenance cost) so we can all get a good average estimate. I'm sure that number will help a lot of people to plan for the future. So far, the estimates seem to be in the $10-$16 per tree per year range. Do the rest of you concur?

cityman, where in middle Tn are you located?

I'm in northern middle Tennessee, just about 2 miles from the KY/TN state line between Portland, TN, Franklin, KY, and Springfield, TN. Are you in the area? Goodness knows I could use a fruit expert to take a look at my little orchard someday! Where are you?

" May I ask how many acres you used to plant 300 trees?"

City,

I only have about 3 acres of peaches planted, but I add a little more every year. This doesn't count apples, plums, or my backyard orchard. I plant at about 100 trees per acre which is considered a very low density orchard.

Almost everyone on this forum (and almost all commercial growers) plant high density orchards. I prefer low density for a variety of reasons. Low density doesn't require supplemental water. Additionally, one can use more vigorous rootstocks without as much pruning. There is also some indication there is less disease pressure with low density.

Specifically with peach trees, it takes a lot of pruning to keep them within bounds on a 20' spacing. I can't imagine how much pruning it would require on some of these high density orchards with 12' spacing.

Remember a fruit orchard is really harvesting sunlight. The advantage of tight spacing is to fill in the empty spaces with leaf canopy, so you can harvest more of the open space/sunlight quicker. This is important for commercial growers because they want maximum yields per acre as quickly as possible.

Backyard growers also like high density plantings because they don't have enough ground to match the ambition of their desired fruit garden. This is a very legitimate reason for a high density planting.

For me (and I suspect for you too) I currently have more ground than I can plant. If I want more trees, I can plant more acres, so there is really no reason to pack the trees in.

For fruits other than peaches, dwarfing rootstocks have the added advantage of producing fruit earlier. Big deal. It's not the end of the world to wait a couple extra years to start to get fruit. I plant peaches mostly anyway, and they are plenty precocious on standard roots. Dwarf rootstocks are more apt to require drip irrigation and are more delicate and shorter lived in general. I don't want them.

I think you did right planting your trees at least 16' to 18' apart. In a few years you will come to appreciate you can walk through your orchard freely. I planted my backyard orchard on a 20' diamond and there are still many times I find it difficult to navigate my ZTR mower through the orchard. Sometimes even my orchard on 20' spacing is like a jungle.

Here, a drip system is not at all necessary for low density (Jag's climate is drier, so drip could be helpful there, depending on the trees, density and rootstocks.) I've never used drip in my backyard, nor at the farm. In 2012, we had the driest summer ever on record (until the last part of August). It was literally drier here than the driest year of the dust bowl. I planted about 225 peach trees that spring plus apples and plums.

The apples and plums needed regular watering (about 2.5 gallons per tree per week) but only because they were brand new trees. I didn't water any of the new peach trees and didn't lose a single one.

I know a commercial peach grower on the MO with 9000 peach trees and he doesn't irrigate.

Sometimes established plums can get a bit dry and show significant water stress. In some of those cases, I have given them a drink, but I'm not sure it's necessary for survival.

I think the risk of virus from wood chip mulch is extremely low. Most viruses are fairly species specific and must come in contact with open wood itself.

Fungus is fairly ubiquitous anyway, so you are very unlikely to catch anything from wood chips that you don't already have. There are a few key fungi which affect various fruit trees. Scab, rust, brown rot, and leaf curl are the big ones you'll be battling (constitute about 90% of the fruit fungi "market share").

I've read studies which looked at the pros and cons of wood chips for mulch of trees. I don't recall them stating disease was a serious threat of wood chips (unless they are incorporated in the soil). The biggest disadvantage I've read is excessive pruning costs of fruit trees because of increased vigor.

I've used wood chips for years and the benefits far outweigh the costs in my opinion.

The cost of fruit trees can be highly variable. Adams has a price break at 25 trees and a larger one at 100. I've bought 100 trees from them before, but their trees are still pretty expensive (depending on size).

Vanwell has a price break at 50 trees, and their prices are very inexpensive.

Cumberland Valley (i.e. Fruittreefarm.com) doesn't have a minimum order, and their prices are the cheapest around.

Whether or not you order patented varieties will also reflect on the price. Patent fees are getting more expensive with some of the most expensive ones I know of at $4.50 per tree.

I have 25 trees ordered from Adams for next spring and my bill (in front of me) is $318.99 (including royalties). It doesn't include shipping, which will probably be another $25 for a total of around $345, or about $13.80 per tree.

For a large backyard orchard, you won't need an airblast sprayer, but you will need some sort of motorized sprayer. I use a 60 gal. Fimco electric powered sprayer for my backyard. I pull it with my ZTR. When I bought it, it cost about $900. I have a couple backpack sprayers I've accumulated, and they still come in handy. But if you know your going to plant more than an acre, you could skip the backpacks and buy something motorized off the get go.

" I have one of those wheels for measuring distance/helping me lay out my orchard. I like those better than tape measures and you might consider it...but I'm sure you have."

I have considered it, but the terrain is so rough after I build raised plantings, that I don't think the wheel would work very well. I think they need fairly flat level ground, which is anything but what my planting area looks like when I plant.

I've also thought about GPS devices, but they are supposedly only accurate to the nearest foot. The ones they use on large tractors and combines for field crops are much more accurate, but those are subscriber services, and expensive.

I once bought a high dollar laser to measure distance, but I couldn't see the red line very clearly over long distances if the sun was up.

For me a plain old long distance tape measure works the best. It's slow, but with two people and some care, you can make nice straight rows. That's something I've tried to do with my new planting because it's next to two roads. I wanted the rows of trees to be very straight for aesthetics, so that when someone drives by the trees all line up perfectly. Anyone from the Midwest who has driven by a well planted cornfield knows what I'm talking about.

Olpea, I just can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading your post....I couldn't even get through it without wanting to Google some of the things you talked about. Your right, I've got plenty of room, and I'm glad to hear my 16-18 ft spacing makes sense. I hadn't thought about low density perhaps preventing me from needing irrigation-that is huge for me. It would be very inconvenient (and costly) for me to run water to my little orchard. Hearing that you average 100 trees per acre really tells me a lot. I doubt seriously I'll get over 100 trees ever so its nice to know I can get there with around an acre of land and still be "low density". ALso reassuring to hear your thoughts on mulch. I had several loads delivered the last few weeks and was really excited about using it, having read of the advantages of mulch-which you seem to agree with. I'm a little perplexed at hearing you say vigor resulting from mulching is a negative thing. I understand it means more pruning, but doesn't that also mean better, faster, and more fruit? Especially since I have enough space to accommodate larger trees.
You spoke of dwarf and standard trees, but all of mine are "semi-dwarf". But I am thinking I'll let mine get a little larger than most. I'm healthy, fairly young, etc so I am really comfortable climbing a latter and therefore thinking I might let my trees get to 12-15 feet. But maybe I should just put out more trees and keep them small.
Another thing I was amused by was what you said about trying to line up your trees and have them look good. I have had the hardest time doing that! Most of the time I tie a string to a tree and make a long line, and put flags every 16-18 feet, then plant where the flags are. But for some reason, my rows just aren't as straight as I wish they were! Oh well...not a huge deal to anyone but me (and apparently you! ha). Part of my problem is I didn't start with a good reference point and have added a few trees at a time. I'm also very unhappy that my trees aren't well "grouped" (ie all apples with apples, peaches with peaches, etc). That's because for a while I kept thinking I was done with each group and I'd start a new fruit type, only later to decide I wanted more varieties of the others. Oh well. I also was extremely interested in your comments about sprayers and would love more advice on that....my next substantial purchase is going to have to be some kind of sprayer. Last year I only had about 20 trees and sprayed with hand-pumped sprayer, but I'm over that. To much pumping and refilling!
Thanks again for all the great info. Now I'm going to go follow up on much of what you told me (including the venders you mentioned).
Meanwhile, I'm sorry if this thread has gotten off topic....I still hope to hear other people's estimates of annual cost per tree.

" I'm a little perplexed at hearing you say vigor resulting from mulching is a negative thing.

Too much vigor can have negative effects on a couple levels. First, as mentioned pruning can be costly. This is mainly a concern for commercial growers. With hundreds or thousands of trees, it's a pretty big deal to have to go through and prune them an extra time in a given season. With hobbyists, just being out there with the trees is fun, so pruning cost isn't a consideration.

Sometimes excessive pruning can mean pruning off too much fruiting wood, so that fruit yields are unacceptably low. This isn't really a concern for something like peaches, which fruit all on one year wood. As long as you leave one year wood, you've got peaches. However, with something like spur type apples, there could be a case where excessive pruning really doesn't let enough spurs develop to get a good crop load per area. I run into a little of this on some pears on full vigor rootstock which I keep pruned at head height. It costs a little production, but not enough to bother me.

Excessive vigor can affect fruit quality. This is sometimes seen with apples where the farmer pours the N (and water) to the trees to get maximum yield. The fruit not only won't color as well, but tends to be starchy. Interestingly, too little vigor can also reduce fruit quality. Leaves are what harvests the sunlight and ultimately pack the fruit with sugar. If there aren't enough leaves, or the leaf size is smaller, fruit size will be smaller and brix slightly lower (Somebody on the forum may challenge me on this. All I'll say is I've read it in commercial literature, and I don't want to hunt to find the source right now.)

All that said, I've never seen any of these issues with wood chips, except a little more pruning required (I have seen fruit quality suffer from using too many fresh grass clippings, but they are much higher in N.)

I personally like vigorous trees. You've got something to work with. You can always prune a little extra if you've got too much wood, but you can't create wood out of nothing, if it's not there. Plus vigor is an enemy of canker when it comes to peaches. Vigorous trees heal over faster and are more apt to stay ahead of canker when it appears.

I would like to talk you out of 12-15 foot trees. There are some people on the forum who like taller trees for aesthetics, or to keep the trees above the browse line of deer. But if you don't have deer and are comfortable looking at shorter trees, I would encourage you to keep them shorter.

Pruning, thinning, and harvesting all take a lot longer on a ladder. It's so convenient to do those chores from the ground. I started my backyard orchard with the same thought as you. Have some beautiful tall majestic trees which also bear fruit. But it didn't work for me. I eventually brought all my trees down to pedestrian height and I love it that way. My rule is, if I can't reach it, I prune it. Even if you like ladders, you may eventually have someone helping you who doesn't.

I also started out my backyard orchard with various grouping of fruit trees, but kept expanding so that the grouping eventually became all mixed up. Plus I pulled various trees out because I didn't like the fruit and replaced them with different fruits. The end result is that there is really no grouping at all in my backyard.

I don't think this hurts anything on a backyard level. I spray the trees individually with a wand anyway, so it doesn't matter. At one time I had 70 trees in my backyard and worked with them so much I had each tree memorized in it's spot. I've changed trees enough and moved some to the farm so that I'm now down to about 45 trees in my yard, but still rarely need a map to walk to a given variety.

At the farm, I've had to be much better organized, because of the larger numbers and the trees are sprayed with an air blast sprayer, which wouldn't be conducive to a mixed up orchard.

Lastly, I have to say you are one of the most courteous and respectful posters I've seen. Very pleasant to read. After you've been on here a while one tends to get a tad more terse or abrupt in their responses (like mine). But you've got a long way to fall before that happens.

Cityman,

" I'm sorry if this thread has gotten off topic.." It is not at all off topic. I enjoy reading everything everyone has posted. It's informative and interesting read.

I don't have much space and have never thought of this topic before. I am so glad you asked/posted. I'm learning, too.

Both you and Olpea are super polite and respectful. I can't speak for others from the Northeast but I have heard people from other parts of the country telling me/us that we, the New Englanders, are not as much. I kind of agree!!

I had never heard of mulch causing problems like I saw either. Its very possible that the problems were in the soil or the air that summer, and I just attributed the problems to the mulch. It was a very wet year too, and that orchard was in town in a river valley with more humidity), so that may have been a bigger factor than the mulch too. I just got to thinking about the reason most people were dumping their tree limbs at the city dump station and decided I would go without.

Where I am now a drip system is a must. The drip system only cost me $600 for the whole 200 trees, so even if I don't have to use it after the first couple years it will still be money well spent. If you go off of our average rainfall you might not need drip here (25in), but so far this year we have only seen 7 inches.

Ive heard of people using weed barrier instead of mulch and it tends to lead to rodent problems. I decided to just leave the orchard in native grass (buffalo grass) and keep the root area clean with glyphosate. Right now Ive got the orchard mowed real low in hopes that the hawks and owls will keep the voles and mice out.

Now Im starting to question my planting spacing for my peaches too! I did lots of research on my sour cherries, but didn't do much on the peaches. I guess I could always pull out every other one and be just a little wide? Maybe I better see how many survive this winter?? ;)

Extension agent was trying to talk me into some trellis system for the trees like 6ft apart a 10-12ft tall trellis for each row!

I used a 500ft roll of 14 gauge electrical wire to line up my rows. I would stake it down on one end and then pull it tight then measure the distances between tree flags with a 100ft tape. Its not too bad, but nothing like gps guided corn rows! Luckily the main road runs north/south here instead of east west!

"Now Im starting to question my planting spacing for my peaches too! I did lots of research on my sour cherries, but didn't do much on the peaches. I guess I could always pull out every other one and be just a little wide?"

Jag,

I also planted my sour cherries 15' in the row (which from my experience is plenty of room). Their canopies don't spread like my peaches.

There are some commercial growers who do 12' spacing on peaches, and narrower with pillar or V-systems. Certainly there are folks on this forum who plant peaches as close as every 4 foot apart. It's just the wider planting works well with my tree vigor and management approach.

You have a shorter growing season and colder winters which may make a difference.

Since the rest of the members here seem tolerant of this slightly off-topic discussion (thanks, Mamuang), I'd like very much to continue it since it is filled with generally helpful information for me and (hopefully) other beginners. Olpea’s sentence/ advice "I would like to talk you out of 12-15 feet trees" exemplifies why I love this web site and appreciate its members. I'm VERY new to fruit trees and have very little knowledge on growing them. I have lots of ideas/plans that make perfect sense to me, but having experienced growers like Olpea give me feedback on those plans is sooo much better than me spending 5-8 years trying something out, only to find out there was a better way. Sounds like you did just that, so I appreciate you sharing your experience and saving me all that time! Your arguments against tall trees was persuasive and I'm now rethinking that strategy. As for vigor, I think I would enjoy vigorous trees. I actually ENJOY pruning and after doing an unbelievable amount of research, its one of the few areas of fruit tree growing that I am somewhat comfortable with. In fact, I enjoy this new hobby so much that I walk through my little orchard almost daily-even in dormancy. Vigorous trees give me the opportunity to practice pruning and to see my trees develop, though I can see how most people would look at it as a chore. SO if mulch results in that, all the better. I appreciate jagchaser following up his comments about mulch possibly contributing to fungus/bacterial infections by acknowledging that he is not sure about it, but I have read that in other places so I think it is something worth, at least, being mindful of. I am glad others joined in to say they use it with no problems.
Ok, since you are all being gracious enough to address my various “beginner” questions, I want to follow up on a couple other things some of you just mentioned. One is the use of glyphosate (roundup) to control weeds around fruit trees. In short: is that OK? I’ve really wanted to do that but have been scared, especially on very young trees. Do most of you spray it at the base of your fruit trees? Anything I need to know before doing so? Common sense tells me to mix It as weak as I can and use as infrequently as possible, is that enough caution ? Another aforementioned subject I’d like a little help with is fertilize. I know just enough to know that fertilize can get very complicated very quickly if I want to really get into it. I mean, I understand that each different fruit requires more or less of different fertilize components (like N, KCL, etc.) and some of you may use custom fertilize geared toward each variety. But since I started this hobby, I’ve been using good old basic 10-10-10 garden fertilize and just putting it from the trunk out to the edge of the canopy/drip line of my trees. I’ve read that this is good, that its bad, and everything in between. But within a few weeks of applying it, I get obvious growth spurts and my trees are all healthy and seem to be growing as fast or faster than average (avg being based on what I’ve read is expected for each tree type). SO I really think my little 10 10 10 is working, but like everything else I’m doing…I’m not sure. So what say you all? And by the way…this is still related to the topic of budgeting because its certainly more economical to use triple 10 (or triple 15) and if I have to use a separate, custom blend for each type tree, it will get expensive. Finally, I know many experts say if you have good soil you need little or no fertilize, but that just doesn’t make sense to me. AS an avid gardener, so I’m a big believer in fertilize and have a hard time thinking it isn’t needed/won’t help. But as always, I’m here to be educated so please give me your thoughts!
Thanks, in advance, to all of you for taking the time out of your lives to share your hard earned knowledge with a guy who needs all the help he can get! 
Kevin

I personally have no problem with glyphosate, but there are lots of people out there who wont use it.

You are more likely to have problems stemming from the application of fertilizer than you are the application of glyphosate. I don't plan to use any fertilizer, at least until I start harvesting fruit. My ground is virgin pasture and has never been used to produce anything. Most crops (wheat, corn, beans...) planted into this kind of new ground will fail the first year because it is too high in nitrogen anyways. Your ground may be depleted if it has been farmed or even if you cleared native trees to make room. The only way to know is do some soil samples. For just a backyard project I bet you will be fine until you start to harvest too.

"Common sense tells me to mix It as weak as I can and use as infrequently as possible"

No offense, but its that kind of thinking that encourages resistance in weeds. Most people dont realize it, but applying lower rates sometimes only stunts the plant. Sometimes they still seed out and that is how the problem starts. It is best use the rate listed on the label, and not dilute more than that. Don't buy the premixed stuff the box stores sell. Go to a coop or farm supply store. Buy it only if it lists the active ingredient as "glyphosate", it should say 4 pounds of active ingredient per gallon. The normal labeled rate for 4 pound glyphosate is 1 quart per acre (unless you have one of the few weeds that needs more). More is better, you don't want anything to escape and start a resistant population on your place.
I spray right up to the trunk, even on young trees. Glyphosate only works on what is green. If you have shoots coming off down low DO NOT get it on them. It works from the inside out so once it gets on a green leaf it will go inside and kill the whole plant. If you just pruned off those low shoots then keep the roundup away unless you sealed off the cuts. I spray it during dormant season and during growing season, but during the growing season you have to be real careful. If there is any breeze it can carry spray particles to places you don't want it.

Once you mix it use it that day. Glyphosate in hard water only has a half life of approximately 24 hours. If you leave it in the tank for a week and then spray you are likely to see no effects. Also watch that you don't spray if the weeds are dusty. The minerals in dust will deactivate glyphosate before it can be absorbed also.

Remember glyphosate works best on young actively growing weeds. If you try to spray it on weeds that are already seeding out, or try to spray when it is really hot, it wont do much good.

It is actually one of the safest chemicals out there, but you wont hear that from the Monsanto haters. My info comes from years of commercial application of ag fertilizers and chemicals.

Kevin, regarding vigor, I feel (rightly or wrongly) that you may be over-stating the value of vigor. You may have more experience and know more than I do, but I'll share my opinion here, if for no other reason so that you or others can teach me why I'm under-stating the case. So my thoughts are that some trees, like peaches in particular, are just so much more vigorous than others that it doesn't necessarily make sense to push vigorous growth as with less vigorous species. There are trees like pawpaws, for example, that at least in my observations and in my area seem to do a lot better with heavy investments in weed suppression and mulch and irrigation and fertilizer, but there are other trees like chestnuts, for example, that have grown so vigorously for me without any of that special treatment that it would seem silly to invest heavily in those things. Other fruits like persimmons, I've read, will respond to abundant N by dropping their fruit. Keeping soil moisture in the best range for optimal growth can reduce flavor/sugars in some fruits. Muskmelons taste better when water is limiting vine growth, I think. I think that's true for various tree and vine crops, too. Mulch can attract rodents that damage trees. I suspect excessively vigorous growth in pears may just invite fireblight -- my pruning strategy is intended to restrain vigor in my pears, for example. I'm definitely not trying to argue against watering or mulching or fertilizing, but I think there are trees for which some or all of those practices beyond certain points really don't make any positive difference or can have more negative effects than good. My over-simplified list of trees and fruits that I think could benefit from really promoting vigor include pawpaws, pecans... At the other extreme I'd include pears, Asian pears, mulberries, established muscadines, peaches, European plums -- I don't have any experience with Japanese plums -- figs, chestnuts... For me apples, at least with the rootstocks I have, are more like pawpaws, which is to say they can benefit from relatively heavier investments in promoting vigor.

Kevin,

I agree w/ Jag that if you're unsure about your soil, a test is the way to go.

You're right that intensely fruited land will need replenished with some fertilizer. Removing thousands of pounds of fruit per acre will obviously remove minerals.

However, if you are applying wood chips, they are a fertilizer. One truckload weighs several thousand pounds itself. That's a lot of soil replenishment.

I use glyphosate, but would encourage you to use it very carefully. If you get the spray on the bark of young trees, you run the risk of killing them. I've seen a picture of a new peach planting where the weeds under the peach trees were sprayed with glyphosate but the applicator got spray on the trunks of the trees. It killed the whole planting.

Glyphosate can be easily absorbed in young trees with "smooth bark". Once the bark starts to get rough (about year 3 on peaches) it becomes more impenetrable and is safer to get glyphosate on the bark (You still can't get it on the foliage though.) It helps if you provide a barrier on the trunk (like paint).

Even in older trees, it is not recommended to spray glyphosate past the middle of July in this area. The reason is that past that time the trees start moving more nutrients to the roots (to prepare for fall) and they will translocate more glyphosate to the roots after July 15, where it can do more damage.

This summer I got some over-spray of glyphosate on some peaches (spraying underneath the trees with a wand). I posted a thread about it with pictures (See link below.)

Cousin,

I know you addressed your post to Kevin, but just wanted to mention that I use mulch mainly for weed suppression. It does increase vigor, but not to the point where I've seen fruit quality suffer.

Weed control is a pretty big deal for peaches. I agree with you they are naturally vigorous, but only if they don't have to compete with weeds. Mulching the trees means less spraying/mowing for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Glyphosate Damage

I spray onto the trunk almost every time and have never lost any kind of tree. I have inspected glyphosate damage before and everytime I have found there were low hanging leaves that got hit, or suckers from below ground or below the graft. If it hits one leaf off of a sucker it will kill the whole tree.

I have seen other damage where the amount of water sprayed on was too heavy. In that case it didn't kill the tree but stunted them like in olpeas pictures. If you can see the weeds are wetted then you are putting too much spray on. In that case glyphosate may soak into the trunk before it dries. To work properly in a commercial sprayer I will apply only 3-10 gallons of water per acre as the carrier. You should be able to look at the leaves immediately after application and not see any moisture. As soon as it dries it will stop working on anything that is not green. If it is humid and you sprayed it so heavy it runs off then it may take hours for it to dry and it might absorb some.

" To work properly in a commercial sprayer I will apply only 3-10 gallons of water per acre as the carrier."

Jag,

According to my reading and experience, concentrate sprays do not decrease the risk of drift (i.e. damage) but rather increase it. Large droplet sizes (i.e. dilute sprays) are not carried as far by wind. The label says to apply coarse sprays when using high volume hand held equipment (i.e. what I was using).

I don't know why you haven't experienced glyphosate damage when applying the chemical to young tree trunks. Everywhere I Google comes the warning not to get it on young tree trunks (i.e. use a shielded sprayer, use milk cartons to protect young trunks, don't use it in orchards less than 2 years old, etc.) Maybe you were spraying so lightly you really weren't getting any chemical on the trunks? Or maybe it was sprayed in the dormant season (which is something I wanted to ask you about)?

" I spray it during dormant season and during growing season, but during the growing season you have to be real careful."

I was curious why you spray glyphosate in the dormant season. As I'm sure you are aware, it has no carryover and works best on actively growing weeds. I can't see any reason to use it during the dormant period.

Cousin,

I found a short article from Clemson about the benefits of weed control in peaches. It also has some pics of herbicide damage, so I thought it relevant to this thread (See link below.)

Kevin,

I know we are getting further away from your topic, and you really want to know the costs associated with home orcharding, so I'll give a shout out here again to ask for more opinions/experiences regarding the costs. Anyone?

Here is a link that might be useful: Weed problems in peaches - Clemson

Olpea, I can see how my comments could be taken as disagreement with things you've said, but I don't think you've said anything about mulch or weeds and peaches that I'd even partially disagree with. In other words, your recommendations don't seem at all too much for an already vigorous tree like peaches. (Although what would be advisable with one species in one state wouldn't necessarily have to apply in another state.) In my experience, however, mulch is relatively less necessary with established peaches than some other trees, because once peaches are established they shade out and compete with weeds well enough that mowing/scything (as an alternative to mulching) seems to be pretty effective at keeping weeds to a minimum.

Sorry, off topic....I may not have explained that right. Droplet size is very important for drift control, but that has nothing to do with effectiveness. I do not spray when there is a chance of drift.
There is a huge difference between droplet size and carrier volume. I can spray 3 gallons per acre and still have large droplet size, that all depends on what pressure I am using. 15psi will give you large droplets and 50psi will give you smaller droplets.
Some chemicals require "wetting" of the leaf and that will require more gallons per acre. Glyphosate is not one of those. Even 1 large drop hitting the leaf can still get enough chemical into the plant because it works from the inside. 1 large drop per leaf may get the job done, but lots of smaller ones will get it done better. SOme chemicals just burn the leaf where the chemical touches (paraquat), they depend on the plant losing its leaf surface area to starve the rest of the plant. Those kind of chemicals will not work without wetting.

Most of this is not useful when we are talking about hand sprayers, but the theory behind it can be useful. My point was if you are wetting the trunk it may have time to soak into the tree. Wetting is not required for glyphosate and actually causes the chemical to work less well. If you overspray and hit the trunk with a small amount of fine droplets that can evaporate quickly then you wont have any problems. Explaining that to every gardener who uses a wand would probably be impossible and that's probably the reason for all the warnings (everyone unknowingly incorrectly applying)

In the past the label for glyphosate used to say to avoid drift on trunks under 2 years, but they have since changed that. Now it says it is safe as long as it doesn't touch any green tissue. Remember though, those labels are for orchards using calibrated equipment, operated by people who have the license and knowledge of how to apply correctly. Label also says you can use it to kill suckers, but I have seen contact with suckers kill the whole tree.
As far as spaying during the trees dormant season. I have winter annuals like mustard and cheatgrass among others. They come up in the fall and seed out in early spring. Glyphosate works well on those because they are small and young all winter. If it is really cold it will work slower, but for me it is still safer to spray those before the tree comes out of dormancy. That is one less spraying I have to do in season when there is a chance of drift.

I've spent plenty on starting my home orchard, but the vast majority is in buying the trees and materials needed to plant them- $11/post for the in-ground trees and plenty of $$ for the fabric pots, pine bark, perlite, etc for the potted plants. I just started 4 years ago and have been adding trees steadily (currently at around 75 in-ground, with more ordered for spring), so the costs may increase over time. I've also got >100 trees/berry bushes in 5+ gallon pots.

From my spreadsheet, I've spent $5700 on plants alone in the 4 years (including shipping), not counting next spring's orders. $2650 of that was for 123 trees, so it works out to $20.85, plus shipping. The shipping isn't too bad if you buy in large chunks- not something I have always done, given that my largest order was 20 trees.

In terms of upkeep, most has been by hand. I've mulched with free wood-chips and amended the soil with composted leaves (free from town). I have bought some cheap 10-10-10 fertilizer (less than $50 in 4 years) and a few drip-lines, hoses, and spools of twine for training. I've also had to buy some tools (fork for chips, pruners, shovels, safety glasses, sledge hammer and 5' iron bar for getting rocks out, etc), but while not cheap, they haven't been that much.

The real cost has been in time. Rather than risking the trees by spaying herbicide, I've hand weeded anything that comes up through the chips. I've also bagged the fruit (mostly apples) with ziplocks rather than spraying. This has worked reasonably well and is pretty cheap (One note on vigor. I watched an interesting video recently by Terence Robinson. In it (and the 2-3 related videos where he has hand-on demos), he describes the importance of getting strong initial growth. Basically, he wants to get the trees up to the 10' mark in their 2nd year, then keep them there by diverting their energy into making fruit. This is for apples on dwarf rootstocks at 3x12' (around 1000/acre), so it may not be applicable to low-density peaches. Most of my trees are at 4-6' spacing on 10-12' rows, so it is probably more relevant to me.

I've probably stunted some of my trees by cropping them too heavily in their 2nd year (and in a few cases in their 1st...). Others seem to do fine producing a few fruit in year 2. As I get more and more fruit coming in, I have started to become more patient with the new plantings- after all, I have other fruit to occupy me. The downside is that I didn't baby them as much this year and the growth wasn't as strong.

Bob,

I wholeheartedly agree time has been the largest use resource in my home orchard. You must have a heck of a backyard orchard for 5K invested in plants. Even though that sounds like a lot, I think orcharding is one of the most common sense hobbies, financially speaking and otherwise.

I know people who have hobbies motorcycling, rock crawling, watching sports, etc. They spend thousands of dollars in equipment, trailers, going back and forth to events, and really get nothing for their investment other than a moment of pleasure. Growing one's own food is not only satisfying, but healthy and can be ecologically beneficial. To that end, I think one has to compare orcharding/gardening to other hobbies, not in isolation.

Thanks for posting the video. I noticed it is 50 min. long, but I plan on watching it when I have some more time.

Cousin,

I completely agree older established peach trees compete with weeds better. In my home orchard, those are the last ones that get re-mulched. And in older trees, the vigor does slow down some.

Jag,

You're right, droplet size is not always correlated with carrier volume. I was thinking more of an airblast sprayer (which wouldn't be used to apply glyphosate) when I wrote about droplet size and spray concentration. Droplet size is more closely correlated to spray concentration with an airblast because you have to drive fairly slow to allow the spray to penetrate the canopy, which means smaller nozzles and lower volumes if you want to apply concentrate sprays. You can reduce pressure to increase droplet size, but the pressures we are talking about with an orchard sprayer are 150-300 psi (at least with my sprayer) not 15 to 50 psi. Unlike a boom sprayer, you can't simply drive faster with an orchard sprayer to compensate. I've only used my airblast sprayer a few times, so I'm still getting used to it.

I think droplet size and carrier volume still apply to a wand sprayer though. What I mean is that it would be very hard to apply concentrate sprays with large droplet size and still get even coverage on the weeds. As you know, the more concentrated the spray, the more likely the room for errors (i.e. drift, uneven coverage). 3 to 10 gallons/acre of water is extremely concentrated. What type of equipment are you using to apply glyphosate at that level of concentration?

I still not convinced glyphosate is safe on the trunks of young peach trees. I've read too much to indicate otherwise. I admit I've never tried to kill a young peach tree by applying glyphosate to the trunk. In fact, we're very careful not to get it on the trunks of young peaches at all, so I don't have personal experience to draw upon. Perhaps I'll try spraying the trunk of a young peach seedling in the future to see what happens. Nevertheless I've heard/read plenty of warnings not to get it on the small trunks.

Glystar Gold does currently state not to use in orchards less than 2 years. From the label:

"Apply no later than 90 days after first bloom. Applications made after this time may result in severe damage. Remove suckers and low-hanging limbs at least 10 days prior to application. Avoid application s near trees with recent pruning wounds or other mechanical injury. Apply only near trees which have been planted in the orchard for 2 or more years. EXTREME CARE MUST BE TAKEN TO ENSURE NO PART OF THE PEACH TREE IS CONTACTED. " (Emphasis in original)

Below is a paper put out by Rutgers regarding the production of peaches (See link below).

"WARNINGS:
1. Do NOT allow Roundup Ultra Max to contact the leaves, young green bark, fresh trunk wounds, or root suckers, or
severe crop injury may occur.
2. Do NOT allow Roundup Ultra Max to contact ANY IMMATURE PART of PEACH or PLUM trees.
3. Do NOT use GALVANIZED containers. Roundup Ultra Max will react with the container to produce explosive
hydrogen gas."

Here is a link that might be useful: Crop Profile for Peaches in New Jersey

I think I see what the difference is. Those 2 products you are using as examples both have surfactant premixed with the glyphosate. Surfactants by nature cause chemicals to absorb faster, better ect, and together they will cause reactions not seen by one single product alone. And of course a premixed product will have different application instructions than just a single product.

I think we are pretty much in agreement, be careful, follow the label and you should be fine.

What an incredibly interesting and helpful thread this has become! While I appreciate efforts of Olpea to bring it back to my original question, if no one else minds where its gone then I certainly do not. Besides, my last response basically asked about 2 extra things: fertilize and glyphosate, which is exactly what the last few posts addressed. The bottom line is that I am learning an incredible amount of information from this thread so unless someone else is upset that it has been expanded, I, as the OP, certainly do not. All that being said, I do want to thank bob_z6 for responding to my budget question and putting so much detail into his answer. Overall I'm just trying to get a feel for how much a small orchard will end up costing me each year, and his answer and others like it have helped me very much. Now please allow me to address some other posts since my last one.
Your post on glyco was amazing. It makes sense that spraying a weakened version might lead to tolerance, so that’s good information. But perhaps the most informative thing in your post- for me- was something most others may already know….that glyco must be used soon after mixing. I’ve sometimes mixed more than I needed, then used it a week or more later, and had noticed it didn’t work. I just assumed I had mistakenly mixed it wrong or something. Since I’m going to be getting a much larger sprayer in the coming year, I likely would have mixed more than needed and planned to use the rest later….you just saved me that mistake. AS for the “drifting spray” problem…that much I have experienced. I am actually brave enough (or dumb enough) that a sometimes use glycol in my garden. I turn my little hand sprayer so it sprays more stream than mist, then I barely pump it so I just get a small little stream I can direct EXACTLY where I want it. I know it sounds crazy to use glyco around green leafy annuals, but I actually have pretty good luck and it saves untold labor. When I get some errant drift, I just consider it the price I pay, and overall…for me….the savings in hoeing is worth the minor losses I take.
CousinFloyd, I’m flattered you thought I might know more than you about ANYTHING to do with fruit trees, but I assure you I’m the least knowledgeable person here, and each time I read one of these insightful posts I’m reminded of how little I know. So, you are probably right about me overstating the value of vigor, and I really enjoyed reading your argument of why. I just rely on my gardening experience too much, I think, and in a garden it is almost always true that the more vigorously the plant is growing, when it starts to produce veggies that production is almost always porpoertional to the vigor of the plant (yes, there are exceptions, but I’m saying in general). So I just assumed the more vigor a tree is showing, the faster it would produce, the more it would produce, and the better quality it would produce. While I accept your (and others) statements that this isn’t true, its still hard for me to understand. I mean, if a tree is so “happy” with its food and water and sun that it is producing a lot of growth, it seems like that would also bode well for fruit production. So…I’m still learning! Its just hard for me to accept that if a tree is generating great growth, and you cut (prune) that growth away, that the energy and health that was producing the vigorous growth won’t go to produce fruit, or at least roots or trunk or fruiting wood, all of which would eventually help with fruit production, wouldn’t it? PLEASE understand I’m not arguing here….I readily acknowledge my lack of understanding and am just trying to improve it.
I enjoyed the thorough discussion of glycol spraying and learning a lot. Now that I seem to have a few “friends” here who seem willing to help, I desperately need a little guidance on other spraying. Since some people seem to really get upset if we don’t stay on topic, I’ll post it as a separate topic and hope some of you will chime in. Thanks for everything on this thread and I hope others will still give any annual cost per tree estimates you may have.

Earlier tonight, Harvestman posted his spray schedule in another thread. It doesn't deal with the mechanics of spraying (as this thread has touched on), but gives a good overview on what to spray and when.