Fertilizing trees. Effective for faster growth?

[trees]

I have trees I would like to make grow faster. One group are planted white spruce in sandy loam soil. Old farm field. Some are now  4 years old. Some will be planted this year. 2 year transplants. About 50 I can irrigate easily. 50 I could but it would be a lot more difficult.  In full sun In NW wisconsin. These I want to screen the property borders.
The others are ash, oak and soft maple. These are natually regenerating trees on a steep river bank With a western exposure. They are the undergrowth under mature trees of the same species. The mature ones are coming down in the wind and the young are only about 6 to 10 feet high amd 1 to 2 inches in dia.
IThe soil in neutral to slighly acid and I can have it tested.

So the question is will a fertilizer program be worth my time and expense? If so where do I find the specifics I need to know what formulation and quantity to use.

Thanks a bunch.

[Frank_Pender]

One of your best resources might well be  your local extension agent.  Another would be your soil and water conservation people for a soils analysis to determin the best type of application as well as the the ratio mix for the acre or the tree.  Your soils may well be on record already without have to go to any additional expence.  There are chemical suppliers youcan contact that may help,but it almost follows that you purchase your nutrients from them.  the best of luck in you search.  Ihave used straight nitrogen on some of my Douglas Fir trees in the past.  I would sprinkle a heft serving spoonful around the tree at a distance of 5 or 6 feet from the trunk for trees with a dbh of 4 or 5 inches.  For smaller trees I spread the nitrogen about a foot or so from the trunk.  These trees are only about an inch or two in diameter.  

[Don P]

 Not being a forester free's me up from having to give reliable advice :D
I have an old text that says fertilizing juvenile trees stimulates the production of juvenile wood and lengthens the juvenile period . There must be a balance though..I have trees planted on a dozer cut that is well into the lower C horizon of soil. They are alive but sure aren't too happy. The state guys have a planting on a similar site and I've watched them replant 3 times and the trees are still just surviving, no nutrients, pale and stunted. There must be a middle ground. I have some chemical N and a ton of fresh sawdust, the breakdown bacteria tie up all the N till they have the wood composted, and I was going to try that on the bank to try to give the trees some nutrition with "depth". I'm not what you would term an organic type but there is an established system of good things going on in healthy soil working to break down and convert or release nutrients that the application of chemical salts cannot be doing any favors to. Boy am I outta my league here  :D :D

http://www.chesco.com/~treeman/SHIGO/index.html

I've been reading this site, he gets into his theories about using fertilizer vs. compost and why. His articles on chemistry and water rocked my world ;D
Usually the land grant U will do soil testing for free or close to it. I've also heard old pasture is a guarantee of bacterial infection in some species...
Boy I'm outta here you need ...a forester.

[Ron Wenrich]

I'm pretty familiar with that website and the author.  His material that is reprinted from Dr. Shigo is pretty good, when dealing on a tree to tree basis.

Beyond that, he is a tree hugger and has an agenda to prevent all logging on national forest lands.  He also told me that after that, they will press on to state and then private landowners.

[Bud Man]

The Spruce make a nice specimen tree planted in the open, holding their foilage from ground to crown while their conical growth will have breaks in  the canopy so if it's a windbreak you want you'll need to stagger the planting and not plant in rows.  As to the trees in the hard to get at location of steep grade you would benefit from a local- addressing the species needs as far as their tolerance level and needing thinning of the surrounding shade affecting  the Oaks and Ashes.  Indiscriminate usage of fertilizer's with out knowing needs can sometimes do more harm than good.(soil test is needed and most times is free or nomial charge) I'm sure local services are within easy reach. Sounds like you have given this effort a lot of thought and with a little help I hope you achieve your goals   Good Luck !!

[Frank_Pender]

  He had better bring a lunch if he thinks he can prevent me from making lumber out of my trees. 8) 8)

[Ron Scott]

Yes, it's a waste of time to fertilize without first having a soil analysis completed to determine your specific fertilizer needs. See your local Extension Service for an anaysis of your soil sample.

[Jeff]

I would think fertilizing trees on a river bank could be a problem and unnessesary. Wouldnt the trees be getting a pretty good source of nutrients inderectly from the river eventually? And couldn't fertilizing next to a watershed create possible problems in the river, like unnatural vegetative growth, or perhaps worse?

[Ron Scott]

Yes, depending upon soil type, there may be excessive leeching of nutients. Not good in excess for water sources, associated wetlands etc.

[L. Wakefield]

   Being as I'm in the cattle business and have been shoveling increasingly more manure as the herd has grown- I've had 6 years in this northern clime playing with (now vintage)compost- I don't get all het up about it- lazy farmer at any chance..but push it into a pile, turn it once or twice at most- hope IT gets a bit het up- and then I've been planting everything in it. My apple trees came with instr to plant in or top dress with compost- likewise my roses- and all my tropicals and herbs now get about 50% compost. The tropicals EAT the stuff- I mean the volume of the planting material literally shrinks as the plants grow. So if t'were me I'd be tempted to mound aged manure around those trees. Of course, I have so much of the stuff and it is thrifty to put it to good use.

   But I believe I have read some warnings about not getting it too deep right up next to the trunk. It just seems like a gentle, balanced food that has long-lasting benefits. Like with garden plants, they don't put on a BURST of growth but kind've a slow sustained glow and good vigour. I don't know how this wood translate into juvenile vs the better wood- but the slow and sustained effect could be beneficial. It's like the plants and trees take what they want instead of being force fed. Corn is the only thing that doesn't like it.

   Like they say, YMMV. :D   lw

[Bud Man]

Few loads of mulch or leaves etc. will hold tons of moisture around the trees and cut back on the watering needs and then the analysis will dictate the fertilizer needs

[Don P]

DanG, I was really enjoying the articles by the Doc :(
He might want to lift his feet as the bar passes under :D
Got any better links to that kind of stuff Ron?
I noticed none of the foresters touched the comment about extended juvenile growth...myth?

[Bud Man]

Ain't no myth!! :D :D

[Ron Wenrich]

The articles that Keslick has are OK, it is just that he is trying to take an arborists view of tree care, and put them into forest management systems.  Foresters work more with succession and stocking then they do on an individual tree.  

We are also concerned with a lot more then the health of an individual tree.  We are concerned with the health of the community of trees and their components.  To improve or maintain the health of the forest, some trees need to be thinned out.  Mother nature does it, and so do foresters.  Its just that we utilize it instead of allowing the boles to decay, keeping the carbon sink in tact and sealing it up in houses.

Other individual tree information can be found at:

http://www.treehelp.com/features/features-shigo-rhizosphere-1.html

[Bud Man]

Over fertilizing of perrenials is one thing but on trees in forest size lots, it brings about over growth of vegetative growth and attracts invasive and detrimental insects and pathogens.  Results in gardens amount to aphids and the like that one can treat easily but in forest's the treatments become large scale and  cost prohibitive.  Best to fertilize with known needs and leave out the guesswork !!

[L. Wakefield]

   One pictures Dr. McCoy with his tricorder running it over a tree and then giving a quick shot to the limb, muttering 'I'm a doctor, not a tree surgeon'... ;D   lw

[Bud Man]

Or backwards to Wizard of Oz and the animate trees throwing apples !!  I like to look both ways !!

[PeterRennie]

To the original post, you may want to consider a load of biosolids (essentially the sludge from your local sewage plant). It's a high source of nitrogen, but also adds organic matter. It's used a lot in high productivity poplar stands.

It's been treated so you don't worry about pathogens, but there are some concerns about heavy metals.

[Corley5]

Last fall during the elk hunt I was checking an elk kill site near Vanderbilt.  It was in a nice stand of hardwoods that was being managed for sugar maple.  The owner of the woodlot also does septic pumping and dumps his loads throughout the woods.  He has a permit to do it and it seems like a pretty good idea to me.  If I was doing his next timber harvest I request that he quit till I was done ;D.  He also had a nice Meadows #1 with a trailer package setup on a hill top back there complete with a 6-71 for power.  Pretty nice rig.  Said he doesn't get to use it as much as would like and had a Wood Mizer guy coming in to saw some stuff for him.  He also does excavating and had logs of all species scatered all over.