June. 1920 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 2S 



Means of Accomplishing Orchard Tillage 



By Ralph Sundquist 



AS to the value of tillage versus cover 

 crops, we have had considerable 

 discussion. I will suppose that tillage 

 in an orchard is desirable, at least part 

 of the time, that is, we may rotate our 

 orchards so that part is in cover crop 

 and part in tillage, or that we have our 

 orchard in tillage some years, and in 

 cover crop other years, but at the same 

 time clean tillage is desirable. 



If our orchards are in clean tillage 

 constantly, the hot sun of our apple 

 valleys will burn out all organic sub- 

 stances in the soil, and if in cover crop 

 constantly, it becomes ditTicult, in our 

 irrigated regions, to distribute the 

 water properly. With proper means of 

 handling it, livestock, especially hogs, 

 will no doubt rid the orchard of 

 rodents. 



Then, in the matter of tillage, it is 

 necessary first to briefly review its pur- 

 poses. Among ancient agricultural prac- 

 tices, we find that tillage was done en- 

 tirely in order to eradicate weeds. In 

 the course of time, however, it was dis- 

 covered that the moisture content of the 

 soil was increased by tillage. The scien- 

 tific reasons for this were discovered 

 a great deal later than the fact itself, 

 however. But now we recognize these 

 two reasons as the fundamental prin- 

 ciples underlying soil tillage, though 

 commonly we till to conserve moisture, 

 and thus the weeds take care of them- 

 selves. 



Now then, what are the peculiar re- 

 quirements of proper tillage in an or- 

 chard? There are at least three. 



1. We must work up the soil early in 

 the spring, before it forms a crust on 

 the surface. 



2. The soil must be left in a pulver- 

 ized condition, and as level as possible. 



3. The tillage must be continued 

 throughout the early summer, at least 

 after each irrigation, in our irrigated 

 valleys, which necessitates that in bear- 

 ing orchards, the means of tillage must 

 be such as to enable the operator to 

 till as late as possible in the summer, 

 without breaking the heavily laden 

 branches or knocking down the fruit. 



Yakima, Washington 



In this discussion I will speak princi- 

 pally from the point of view of require- 

 ments in irrigated districts, as the larger 

 proportion of our fruit in Washington 

 is grown in the irrigated regions. 



Now let us consider these require- 

 ments, taking up the first two together. 

 The early spring tillage must not be 

 started until the soil has lost any ten- 

 dency to puddle. A disk harrow is the 

 best tool for pulverizing soil, but with 

 horse cultivation, using the standard 

 size of team disk harrow, the process 

 of disking the soil is so slow that, if one 

 has any appreciable acreage, a great 

 many teams and harrows will be re- 

 quired to cover the ground in the allot- 

 ted time. But this is not satisfactory. 

 Furthermore, with present cost of horse 

 feed and labor to care of teams, the 

 keeping of additional horses for spring 

 work brings up the cost of operation 

 very rapidly. Spring tillage can be and 

 always has been, done by horses, but is 

 it entirely satisfactory? Naturally, in 

 this age, our attention is drawn to the 

 use of motor power. Our recently de- 

 veloped small size tractors are built to 

 pull, all day long, a tandem disk har- 

 row, which would exhaust four horses 

 in a few hours' time. With the wide cul 

 and the greater spread of the tractor it 

 is possible to cover the ground very 

 quickly. As far as accomplishment is 

 concerned, evidence seems to favor the 

 tractor for early spring tillage in the 

 orchard. 



The tillage must be continued 

 throughout the early summer, at least 

 after each irrigation, in our irrigated 

 valleys. It has been a custom among 

 many fruit growers to till the soil in 

 the spring, and until the weight of the 

 fruit bends down the branches, but 

 after this to leave the irrigation ditches 

 permanently, depending on the shading 

 from the trees to check an excessive 

 evaporation. From observations on 

 several orchards, it has been my con- 

 clusion that this practice results in 

 small apples. Though the irrigation 

 water is turned into these furrows ev- 

 ery two or three weeks, the fruit suf- 



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fers from a lack of moisture. The 

 ground becomes packed and baked and 

 will not absorb sufficient water, and 

 the crust which has formed and the 

 packed nature of the soil, favors capil- 

 larity to the extent that what little 

 moisture does seep in is quickly lost by 

 evaporation as soon as the water is 

 turned off. Here the low built tractor 

 which is capable of pulling a wide or- 

 chard tool, fills a place that no other 

 means of tillage can fill. There are 

 many tractors on the market each 

 claiming superior points over others. 



The main consideration in the choice 

 of a tractor best suited for orchard con- 

 ditions is that the machine must have 

 extraordinary tractive ability. I say 

 extraordinary, because more traction 

 is required from a machine suited for 

 orchard purposes than for any other. 

 In the first place, this tractor must con- 

 stantly operate in a very loose, deep 

 soil mulch. Wheel tractors are limited 

 in their tractive ability by the size of 

 of the wheels, the larger the wheels 

 the better the traction, while the large 

 size of wheels is at the same time dis- 

 advantageous in that it raises the trac- 

 tor up too high and the high moving 

 wheels are themselves a source of con- 

 siderable breaking of limbs and knock- 

 ing down of fruit. Furthermore, many 

 of our best orchards are located on 

 sloping land, the sites being especially 



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